The King's Note rewrite
by Bloodstained Comma
Summary: With no true identity and the Shinigami King's own death note in her hands, aspiring con artist Katherine Lynton feels drawn to the Kira case and wishes to find some way to help solve it. Rewrite, AU, LxOC later, better summary inside.
1. Torn

_I'm baaaaaa-aaaaack =]_

_And so extremely epically splendiferously awesomely amazingly fantabulously happy to be working on this story again._

_I missed it so much._

_And the OCs. I missed them._

_And Ryuk.  
_

_And the task force. _

_And L. Though you'll have to excuse Pat for hitting him over the head with a tire iron. Just be forewarned of that._

_I even missed Imagay. And Misa._

_So, for those of you newcomers who aren't familiar with the original version of this fic, here's a quick summary for you:_

_**Summary:  
**_A few years after picking up the Shinigami King's death note, which allows its user to see all Shinigami and not only take lives (adding one year to the user's life for each death) but also save them (each at the price of one year subtracted from the user's life), Katherine Lynton, an aspiring con artist in Ireland, is sure she knows how Kira is killing off criminals; he has his own Death Note. Upon convincing her friends (and fellow criminals) Al, Pat, and Don to come with her, unbeknownst to the fact that she possesses a Death Note herself, the four head to Japan, purchase a house in the suburbs of Tokyo with stolen money, and begin tracking down both Kira and the great detective L at the head of the Kira case, as they search for a way to put a stop to Kira before he can put a stop to them.

_So, that's the general basis. If you'd like some extra background info (though not much, since the story's unfinished) on the four OC's, then feel free to check out my fic **Animalistic Tendencies**, which is a precursor to this fic that I wrote mostly for the purpose of developing the characters of Al, Pat, and Don and getting all of the background info on my four OCs totally straight._

_For those of you familiar with the story, YES, I've totally revamped the first chapter. It takes place earlier on than the original first chapter did. And I eliminated the prologue because it's going to be covered in** Animalistic Tendencies** when I get there.  
_

_So, here goes._

_**Disclaimer:** All your death note are not belonging to me. However, my OCs are mine._

_**Warnings: **Alcohol, smoking, tire irons, stealing, breaking in, etc. etc._

_**Quote**:_  
_Don sat back in the computer chair. "Bloody hell… is there anything else you could knock him out with?"_

_"There's a tire iron in the bag."_

_Blinking in slight confusion, Katherine looked over at Don. "Why is there a tire iron in the bag?"_

_"Why," Don repeated into the microphone, "are you carrying around a bloody tire iron?"_

_On the monitor, Pat shrugged and replied quietly, "Yeh never know when yeh're goin' to need a tire iron." Don set the microphone down as a hand came to his face. As he was shaking his head in disbelief, Pat added, "I also have a crowbar, if that would be any better."_

* * *

"Are yeh sure he can pull this one off?" Katherine looked at Don, biting her fingernail nervously. "If he gets caught—"

Don held up a hand, holding a headphone to one ear. She stopped midsentence to listen. "He's already broken into a hospital and nicked enough anesthetic to put ten elephants out without anyone noticin' while 'e was there. If 'e can't handle _one_ bleedin' detective in a hotel room, then we're better off without him, anyway, yeah?—_Ow!_" He rubbed the back of his head where Katherine's fist had just collided with it. "The hell? I was only jokin', woman, relax! That bloody hurt…"

"Pansy," she scoffed, and then stood from her chair in front of the television sets. She stared at the only working one, wondering what was taking so long. Don and Al both seemed sure enough that it could be pulled off, and granted they had been in this together for much longer than she had been a part of this miniature crime "family," but there were some things that had to be impossible, even for these three.

One of these seemingly impossible things was planting cameras in the hotel room of the world's greatest detective without said detective figuring it out eventually. Banks and hospitals were broken into plenty, successful robberies made from museums and art galleries time and time again over the years, but L was on an entirely different level. The amount of time it had taken to simply track the detective down was staggering by Pat, Al, and Don's standards, so why should they be able to do this successfully, without leaving behind some trace that they were once there?

Running a hand through her hair distractedly, Katherine looked at the door that led out into the living room. "Need a bloody cigarette…. What's taking that bastard so long? I swear, if he hurt my car…"

Adding on to her apprehension that all of their plans were going to crash and burn was the ill-temperedness derived from a sleepless night and a killer hangover that had been persisting for most of the day. The worst of it had ended that morning, but the headache had yet to leave, and it felt as though it was trying to pound its way out through her right eye. She brought her hand to her forehead, attempted and failed for well over the hundredth time to shake the headache away, and ended up stomping irately off into the living room.

From a wireless earphone in her ear, she heard Pat finally give a barely audible status report as she entered the living room.

"All right, I'm in, shutting the window now. Any signs of the detective in question?"

"Nah, none yet," Katherine heard Don reply, both through the headphone and from the next room. "Now, around the corner of the hallway. And keep quiet."

A moment later, Pat replied with, "All right, I'm there."

"And visible on the monitor," Don added. "Which means that so far, the plan is going exceptionally well, contrary to the beliefs of the paranoid ginger—"

Rolling her eyes, Katherine called back over her shoulder into the monitoring room, "Oh, be quiet. _You _were the one talkin' about getting rid of him if he failed earlier."

"_Joking_!"

Katherine would have replied if not for the fact that she heard the back door of the small house close. With hopes that her nicotine withdrawal would soon be soothed, she rushed in the direction of the noise and met Al at the kitchen table as he was pulling a wig off of his head with a rather uncomfortable look in place. With an amused laugh, she commenced digging through bags that had already been set on the table, and was already in a better mood when she found a pack of cigarettes among many six packs of beer and a few other random items that the house had run out of.

Al looked a little more disgruntled, now removing a pair of color contacts from his eyes that had given them more of a blue tint than green.

"Yeah, laugh, yeh're not the one who 'as to go out in public lookin' like yeh've been livin' under a bleedin' bridge for a week," he said, dropping the contacts on top of the black wig on the table.

Katherine shook her head, lighting a cigarette. "That's what happens when yeh're wanted for murder. And besides, I doubt a bum would be able to afford such expensive _accessories_," she teased, indicating the fake four gauge plugs he was now pulling off of his earlobes and also dropping on top of the wig. This earned her a glare. "Well, yeh could've just let Don go pick everything up, but no, you insisted on being let out and—"

"I've got no problems with anything but the bloody disguise," he said disgustedly. "I'm never leaving you and Pat up to that sort of work again."

"Well, yeh've got to admit, you looked nothing like yerself."

"No, I still resembled myself, and that's more'n enough with the charges I've got under _my_ belt right now," he said. "And to top it off, the fact that I was buying all of _this_ while lookin' like a damned bum didn't exactly help me blend in."

"All right, yeh _don't_ look like a bum," she said. "Stepping away from the professional look _won't_ kill yeh, I promise. You still look like a fully functioning member of society. It's buying this much alcohol all at once that makes yeh look more like a semi-functioning member. And," she said, going into a bag, "buying _this_ probably didn't help yer case much either." She pulled out a canister of lye flakes. "As far as I know, there aren't any clogged drains in this house. So unless yeh're planning on makin' soap or somethin', care to explain?"

"Of course." He held up his hands, where ten vague traces of old burn scars could be seen with new skin growing around them. "I need to redo them. The fingerprints are starting to grow back."

Katherine blinked. "Oh. It's not permanent?"

"Lasts a few months at the most. And the three of you'll be needin' to get rid of yer prints as well," he added—that had been her first suspicion. "Safety first. Getting caught on a job like this'd result in a lot more than a slap on the wrist."

"Oh, come _on_," Katherine protested. "We've never been caught _before_ just usin' gloves, why_—_?"

"Safety first," Al repeated firmly, and Katherine rolled her eyes. That was always his philosophy, and even more since the murder framing. She didn't see why he had agreed to help with any of this in the first place if he wasn't willing to take any risk whatsoever—risks in situations like this were occasionally necessary. "If any of us get caught by L," he continued, "we'd prob'ly be lucky to get anything less than the death sentence."

"Fine, all right," she said. "I'll do meself bodily harm and forfeit the use of my fingertips for awhile for the sake of staying inconspicuous. Happy? Never mind the fact that we're looking to eventually gain L's trust." With a sigh, she added, "I'm going back to the surveillance room to see what's going on with the break-in now. Haven't heard any correspondence in a little while." She indicated her earpiece before turning and walking out of the kitchen and heading back into their surveillance room.

She took her seat back in her chair. "Still no L?"

"Not yet," Don said. "Probably won't take too much longer—"

"Er… minor problem." Katherine and Don both looked up at the monitor screen where Pat, who had just spoken quietly, was standing against the wall. "The anesthetics."

After a moment of total silence and stillness, Don picked up the mic from the computer desk in front of him, pressed down the button on its side, and spoke into it. "What about them?" he asked slowly.

"They may very well be sitting on the kitchen counter," Pat replied weakly.

"Are yeh sure they're not in yer bag?"

"Yes. Because now I'm rememberin' forgetting to pick them up."

Don sat back in the computer chair. "Bloody hell… is there anything else you could knock him out with?"

"There's a tire iron in the bag."

Blinking in slight confusion, Katherine looked over at Don. "Why is there a tire iron in the bag?"

"Why," Don repeated into the microphone, "are you carrying around a bloody tire iron?"

On the monitor, Pat shrugged and replied quietly, "Yeh never know when yeh're goin' to need a tire iron." Don set the microphone down as a hand came to his face. As he was shaking his head in disbelief, Pat added, "I also have a crowbar, if that would be any better."

With a sigh, Don picked the microphone back up. "Either should work, just be careful about it. Make sure you knock him out on the first try, but no serious head injuries."

"No worries," Pat said. "This wouldn't be the first time I've had to hit someone over the head with a tire iron. Or a crowbar. And I've never killed anyone before or caused any permanent brain damage that I know of, so it should all be fine—"

"All right, quit talkin' and go get the feckin' thing before L comes back out of the back room!" Don interrupted. Pat shrugged and moved quickly off camera a moment later.

Katherine shook her head. "I understand the hockey mask, but why did it have to be a _clown_ wig? With any luck, L's bound to laugh himself unconscious at that."

"Honestly, it was the only wig that would fit without use of a bald cap or a hairnet, both of which he refused to wear under the claims that it would 'kill' his hair. And given that his most distinguishing quality is his hair, he sor' o' needed to disguise it."

"If by distinguishing yeh mean 80's, then I couldn't agree mo—"

"Door, shit!" Katherine looked back up at the monitor and saw a door opening down the short hallway. Don grabbed up the microphone from the computer desk quickly. "Have yeh got the damned thing yet?" he asked Pat.

"Yeah—"

"Stand at the other side of the hall, the target's already headed your way. Quickly."

"Right." And, quite quickly, Pat reappeared on screen to the immediate right of the hallway, holding a tire iron, ready to strike.

"The _second_ he passes you, go for it. Don't give 'im any time to even _think_ he saw a clown in a hockey mask before he hits the floor. If you understand, don't move or speak." Judging by the fact that Pat did neither of these things, he quite obviously understood perfectly. "Good. Get ready."

"Why does this seem like the worst idea I've ever heard of?" Katherine said, already starting to flinch even before L was at the edge of the hallway.

"Probably because it is," Don said, looking everywhere but the monitor. "He knows to get out if anything goes wrong, it's just a matter of which way it might go wrong _in_."

"Like if he accidentally inflicts brain damage on the world's greatest detective, for instance?"

"Y… yeah," Don said. "Like that."

Katherine flinched at the sound of the tire iron striking against something, and then a muffled _thump!_ coming from her earpiece. She glanced up to see Pat leaning down next to the motionless body on the floor, picking up it's wrist, and then glancing at his own watch. After a moment, he nodded. "Regular pulse, good sign," he said. "Now it's just a question of how long I have to get this done…"

Don picked the microphone up again. "First thing's first," he said to Pat. "Set up the connection between his computer and this one, we need the information on the case. Close the connection. _Then_ worry about the cameras and the bugs."

"Right." Pat quickly rushed off camera.

"I think we have a problem." Katherine and Don both glanced back at the door to see Al holding up a syringe by its plunger, no doubt filled with anesthetics.

"Has already been solved, apparently Pat carries around a tire iron with him wherever he goes," Don said.

Al shrugged and set the syringe down on an end table. "Never know when you're going to need a tire iron."

Katherine was the one to facepalm this time.

* * *

The plan went over well enough. Not all of the cameras got put up before L had started to show signs of waking up, but enough of them had. Even after L had awoken and found a few of them, promptly tore them down, and spent the rest of the night acting quite jumpy, there were still enough for them to get by on. He would no doubt find more of them as time went by, but the most important thing had been done; they had all of the information on the Kira case from L's own personal computer, which meant that it would be easy enough to catch up on everything in the case up to this point. They could worry about the rest of the cameras later, after L switched hotels again.

The newest, greatest bit of information they had was about the chief suspect in the case; Yagami Light. Light would be entering college after completing his final year in high school, and it would no doubt be the prestigious To-Oh University, and he would no doubt be a freshman representative. Those were all L's conclusions, and by them, L apparently had plans to pose as a representative himself; he was under the impression that Light would be fully capable of scoring perfectly on the placement tests, and so would L himself.

This was where the other three got the idea to have Katherine also pose as one to get inside information on both L and Light. The plan was to somehow create fake test results under the name Katherine Lynton and have them tie with the scores of L and Light, and have said results somehow planted wherever it was they needed to be. She was unsure of the details herself; she still wasn't at quite the level Don and Al were at with these sort of things. Conning people, getting into places on mere eloquence and intelligence alone (with the assistance of fake and stolen identification, of course), making friends in high places only to betray them later for the sake of money—she just wasn't totally sure she was cut out for it. Pat was fully aware that he wasn't and was all for the other side of things; he preferred breaking in to talking his way in; hacking into computers to faking a professional outlook.

Katherine was still torn somewhere in between. Perhaps Al was right in that she should have never run off when the orphanage tried to send her away for the sake of getting her away from them. Maybe she would have been better off growing up somewhere else, so she never would have gotten herself into this sort of life. Now, there was really no turning back. She had done the damage, and she was the perfect person to do fieldwork for this sort of job anyway.

After all, and completely thanks to her old orphanage, she had never been given an identity. No identity, no name, and Kira couldn't do anything.

Pat, Don, and Al were all completely ignorant to this, of course. They knew she had no identity, but they didn't know as well as she did how Kira killed. She had never told them about the death note, nor did she plan to unless it need be. Right now, the Shinigami King's death note was just a useful tool that could maybe help out later. It didn't need to be anything more than that.

Now flipping precariously through the pages of an empty, black notebook with bandaged fingers (she had decided it would be a good idea to burn off her fingerprints tonight just to get it over with) she wondered if it really held so much power. She had seen the Shinigami that had told her of its rules well enough, but it had been only one, and she hadn't been fully awake at the time. It could have been some strange dream. The unmarked notebook hardly seemed like it could hurt anyone, and despite the Shinigami's claims that it would allow her to see any of their kind as it was the property of the King of Death himself, she had never seen another Shinigami.

She supposed the ultimate test would be when she saw Yagami Light in person; if there was some strange spook hovering around him, she would know for sure. She certainly had no intentions of testing the notebook herself; if she would do anything with it, she would use it for saving lives, one of the capabilities the King's death note had that no other Shinigami's had. It would be useful in the Kira case, if it was true. It would ensure that none of the task force would ever die, that L would never die, that none of her friends would.

She imagined getting L's real name would about as easy as getting Al's real name would be; though on opposite sides of the law, they both protected their identities obsessively. Neither of them wanted to be known. Al, because he could be taken in or killed by his competition; L, because he could be killed by his own competition or any criminal in the world. Both had quite a lot to risk with what they were doing.

Climbing off of the bed she had claimed as hers when they all moved into the little house in Tokyo's suburbs, Katherine wondered how it was all going to be pulled off, how it could all possibly work out as they were planning it. She had never questioned Al's capabilities to plan these sorts of operations, or Don or Pat's abilities to enact them, but things were different this time. If they were caught by either side before the time was right, the only thing they faced was death.

After crawling under her bed and brushing away a few cobwebs, Katherine lifted a loose floorboard slowly, careful not to allow it to creak, and slipped the notebook beneath it before laying it back down on her bed. She glanced at the clock to see it was already after four in the morning; maybe she would get a few hours of sleep before being awoken to participate in the study of L's Kira case files.

* * *

_And that's it for chapter 1!_

_I hope everyone can forgive me for having L knocked out with a tire iron, but... yeah. It's sort of Pat's style. It wouldn't surprise me if he left the anesthetics he'd stolen behind on purpose, to be totally honest._


	2. Watched

_Chapter 2 is one hundred percent complete. See? I didn't just abandon it after the first chapter this time! Maybe I'm actually getting back into this whole writing thing again. -knockonwood-_

_So, as always, review replies go here:_

_Spar: Not quite as epic as fummins, but close enough.  
Anime-Kunoichi: It's definitely great to be back! =] I'll try not to screw this one up.  
Kairi the Strong: Haha, that's definitely true. And I'm liking it better so far, too, so I guess that's a good thing.  
lelo: I couldn't agree more.  
Apathetical: Haa, yes, L getting hit with a tire iron makes everything better xD_

_More reviews than I was expecting. Thanks, guys! =D I thrive on reviews, so this is a good thing._

_So, onward we march._

_**Disclaimer**: Me-no-ownz. Sucks, but I don't. Except my characters._

_**Warnings**: Look, we're working with criminals, here. Do I really have to go over the same warnings in every chapter?_

_**Quickquote**:  
"Now that you are all here," L said as Aizawa sat down and Watari walked over to stand behind L, "I would like to inform you that we have all most likely been being watched by an outsider since the end of January."_

* * *

It was a few months after the first successful infiltration of one of L's hotel rooms that Katherine was sitting in wait, in the front row of an audience of her peers at the To-Oh Commencement Ceremony, waiting for the freshman representatives to be called forward. She had been assured that her name would be, without a doubt, among them. Her nerves were on edge, and the brief speech she was going to soon have to make had very little to do with it. More than anything, it was the fact that aside from students in the audience, there was a guest that was, without a doubt, totally uninvited.

It could have been nothing besides a Shinigami, only the second one she had ever seen in her life, in the four years since she had gotten the notebook. It was a strange thing, quite dark in comparison to the almost entirely white one she had first seen. Black wings; what appeared to be a tattered black jester costume sewn to its own pale, blue-grey skin around its neck; a dangling earring hanging from its left ear; circular, almost frog-like eyes; two nostrils instead of any kind of distinguishable nose; a black-lipped, fanged, constant smile reminiscent of a Cheshire cat—it was very possibly the scariest thing she had ever seen in her life. Most notable of the creature, to her, was a belted case hanging from the left side of the belt around its waist, for in it was a notebook, no doubt this Shinigami's death note.

This was the Shinigami that had dropped the death note for Kira, who was, without a doubt now, Yagami Light. After all, how many people in Japan—Tokyo, in particular—could have a Shinigami following them around? And it was definitely hovering right over the very person she recognized to be Light. It could have been no one else.

And sitting right next to Light, unbeknownst to him, was L himself.

A couple seats down, Katherine watched both of them out of the corner of her eye. Light looked perfectly fit for the part of a To-Oh freshman representative, clean-cut and dressed in a suit. L, with his regular baggy white t-shirt and faded, worn blue jeans looked more like he was just crashing the ceremony for the fun of it. Katherine merely felt out of character in the business-like outfit she was stuck in, complete with skirt, which she kept subconsciously tugging at. She would have preferred going totally casual, but she already stuck out enough in the crowd, so dressing for the occasion was the least she could do to blend in, she supposed.

She could finally see why Pat spent so much time complaining about ties whenever he was forced into doing a conning job, as she pulled on her own in an attempt to loosen it without making it look sloppy.

"And now for a few words from our freshman representatives…" Katherine jumped to attention at this and looked up at the man behind the podium on stage. "Yagami Light." Light stood from his chair. "Hideki Ryuuga." L stood next. "And Katherine Lynton." Katherine stood last, and the three of them filed onto the stage, where they took their place behind the podium.

Light was the first to give a brief speech, and this was Katherine's opportunity to enact the first part of the plan. As Al had said, L had to find out sometime that they knew who he was, and the sooner it happened at this point with as much information they had on him to blackmail him with (only if totally necessary), the better off they would all be. They would be assured that at least one of them would have a spot on the investigation team, and the sooner _that_ happened was also the better. They had nothing to bring to the case yet themselves, but they had something that L needed; whereas the investigation team as of right now consisted solely of police detectives who refused to lower themselves to Kira's level and break the law to get information, the four of them were all perfectly willing to do so. They were just as directly in danger as L or the taskforce were, as they were criminals, as one of them was wanted for multiple murders he never committed. All in all, Al was at least certain that L would see the benefit of accepting them.

"He's not daft," he had said in lieu of Katherine's protests that he might have her arrested as a Kira suspect the moment she said anything about knowing who he was, "and he's stubborn. He believe this Yagami Light bloke is Kira and he won't leave that belief, and he's goin' to listen to anyone who might have the capability to reveal his identity to the world."

Katherine reached into her pocket slowly and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper and a pen—an action L didn't fail to miss. He had been keeping an eye on her since she had been called up with them. It was suspicious, and he had been on edge ever since his hotel room had been broken into a few months ago. It was too rash to even seem like something Kira would do, and that was what worried him. He was sure it wasn't a random burglary; the fact that things were missing from the hotel room seemed to be more of a cover-up, as he did find quite a few cameras during his stay in that particular hotel. It had obviously been something else, someone who maybe knew who he was. As he had been waking up, he had heard a voice; he couldn't distinguish any actual words in the state he was in at the time, but the accent had clearly been Irish.

After the case he had been forced to abandon in Ireland to take on the Kira case, things were simply too suspicious to ignore. She didn't have a particularly Irish name, but that wasn't necessarily important. He would have to listen for an accent. If there was one, any at all, then there was at least a forty percent chance that something very strange was going on, and that the person who had broken into his hotel room a few months ago, as well as anyone he was associated with, knew that he was L.

The chances that it had anything at all to do with Kira were slim, but they were still there. And if it did have to do with Kira, then the chances that Yagami Light was Kira were slim. Either way, something just didn't seem to fit quite right.

Unnoticed by Light, who was still making his brief speech, Katherine scribbled something on a small strip of paper torn from the sheet in her pocket and slid it across the top of the podium to L. Katherine kept her head turned to the audience, but watched L from the corner of her eye as he took in what was written on the paper before carefully picking it up and slipping it into his pocket without being noticed—he was much less surprised than she expected at the sentence written on that paper—_"I know you're L."_—but he _was_ L, after all. In some unknown, utterly impossible way, perhaps he had already deduced that she knew who he was.

Before she was allowed any more time to wonder about it, it was her turn to take the microphone, and she kept it as brief as possible. She hardly knew what to say and mostly only copied and rephrased a lot of things Light had said. How it was such an honor to be a representative for such a great college and things of a similar nature, and she was done quickly.

After L took the microphone and made his brief speech, they were through, and took their seats again until the end of commencement. Katherine kept a close watch on L and Light from her own chair; she was sure she had seen L say something quietly to the Kira suspect before they sat down, and now Light was looking at least slightly uncomfortable. What made it all the more suspicious was that his Shinigami was, albeit quietly, cackling.

As the Commencement Ceremony ended and the other students filed outside, Katherine stuck to a safe distance behind Light and his Shinigami. Though it hadn't at all been a part of the plan because of Al, Don, and Pat's lack of knowledge about death notes, she supposed that she should take a similar approach to him as she had to L, since she couldn't die even if Light had opted for taking on the eyes of a Shinigami. Kira needed a name to kill, which was something she lacked. Even if he suspected she was against him, there was nothing he could do about it.

She had been chosen for this because she was totally Kira-proof, after all. As L did theorize in his research that Kira needed a name to kill as well as a face, it had been decided that she would be quite good for fieldwork; they just didn't want her taking any huge risks in case L was wrong, or in case she did somehow have an official name. She didn't even know that for certain, but she was willing to take the risk if it meant advancement in the case. If Light was nervous, he would be more apt to make little mistakes here and there, which would lead those pursuing him closer to the conclusion that he was, indeed, Kira.

So, as she walked passed him on her way across the street where her car, she stayed level with his pace for a moment to say quietly, "Nice Shinigami you have there. Pretty big on apples, aren't they?"

As Light stopped in his tracks, Katherine continued walking towards the edge of the road, increasing her pace slightly. While she didn't suspect it, there was still a chance he might go after her and ask her what she knew and how she knew it. She didn't have a response prepared if that happened, so it was essential that she get away as quickly as possible.

* * *

Katherine had entered the house to the sound overly loud music; a rather nauseating smell, which was more than likely someone's attempt to cook that had failed miserably; and Pat practically stealing her car keys before she could hang them up on the key rack at the back door, then promptly leaving after a rushed explanation that the credit card he had been using had been cancelled and he needed to go find a new one. About an hour later, she was finally able to sit down in the monitor room and turn on the monitors.

It had been some time since the first cameras were set up, and also quite a few hotel rooms later on the part of L. They had one up on him since the first room, in that they knew where he would be before he got there through his reservations, so the cameras could be set up beforehand, leaving less room for suspicion on L's part. Now he was probably more suspicious than ever, and this was proven by the fact that he had the whole investigation team gathered at the hotel room. One of them was missing, but Aizawa entered the room only a few moments after the monitors had been turned on, having been escorted upstairs by Watari, who promptly closed and locked the door after they had both entered.

"Now that you are all here," L said as Aizawa sat down and Watari walked over to stand behind L, "I would like to inform you that we have all most likely been being watched by an outsider since the end of January."

There was total silence for at least ten seconds before the silence was broken by Matsuda.

"Kira?"

"I very highly doubt it," L said. "There's less than a ten percent chance that this is Kira; it isn't the sort of action Kira would take. I found most of the cameras in the first hotel room, and since nothing strange ever happened afterwards, I assumed that they had gotten what they wanted. Now, I believe this room, and all rooms between this one and the suite at the Teito Hotel, have been wired with cameras and bugged."

Aizawa shook his head. "Who else would do it?" he asked. "Who else could find you?"

"I have suspicions that it could have something to do with the case I was forced to abandon to pursue Kira. So far, it seems at least two people are involved, if not more. One that I know of was the one who broke in to the room at the Teito Hotel; the other was a freshman representative at the commencement ceremony today. The only tie between them right now is that they both seem to know who I am and are both Irish. My case before this one took place in Ireland. The murders went on hold very shortly before I was forced to leave, and my chief suspect also disappeared."

"Hey, is that the case where they were calling the suspect the Werewolf of Ireland?" Matsuda asked. "I heard about that, all of the killings were made by wolves."

"More than wolves," Ukita said. "I heard it was all kinds of wild animals. Wasn't the main suspect a famous con artist over there or something?"

"Yes," L replied, "you might take notice that credit card fraud and check fraud in the Kanto region have increased since shortly after I took on the Kira case." Another silence crept across the room, which L broke quickly this time. "The cameras could have been the work of Kira, or the third representative could have been Kira, but I don't see the chances of it as being high. However, the chances that this has something to with my last case are much higher, and in order for us to get anywhere with the Kira case, these people must also be dealt with."

"And you don't know who any of them are?" Yagami asked. "Where would we even start? We couldn't exactly target everyone from Ireland currently living in Japan."

"The only one I am almost positive of goes by the name Alvin McManerberry. He has been known to work with a fellow con artist who goes under the name Darrel Marcus, as well as a break-in artist with the alias 'Barry O'Connor.' As for the one at the commencement ceremony today, I'm not sure. However, she would be the easiest to track."

"But Ryuzaki," Yagami said, "if they do have cameras set up here, then they'll be on the lookout."

"Exactly," L said. "If she knows, she's liable to exhibit some change in behavior. Perhaps acting more suspicious, perhaps abnormally unsuspicious. Regardless, if her attitude changes in any way, and depending on the way it changes, then the chance she is hiding something will be either increased or decreased."

Biting her nails nervously, Katherine stood from the chair she had been seated in and turned to head to the living room. She stood at the door and looked out, the sounds of the investigation team discussing tactics ringing behind her on the monitors.

"We have a problem…" she said slowly. Al looked up from the television, which had been switched to a news station. Don stayed passed out on the sofa, an empty tequila bottle in his hand. "L knows we're all here."

"And the problem is?" Katherine's brow furrowed. "The intention _was_ for him to find out. Now 'e's just got to figure out what we're doing, or take one of us in for questionin' and find out firsthand. Since yeh're the closest to him right now, yeh'll probably be the one taken in, if that's what he ends up doing." Katherine blinked. "At least he doesn't think we're with Kira," Al pointed out.

"Well, he still thinks there's a chance we could have to do with Kira. Less than ten percent, but that's also what his suspicion of Yagami Light is at."

"And he also isn't necessarily Kira, remember?" Katherine shrugged. "Most likely suspect doesn't _mean_ anything. Don't think anythin' of it, everything's followin' the plan so far."

With a slight frown, Katherine turned and walked back into the monitor room. She just didn't see how he could possibly be so confident that everything was going to work out perfectly. He probably was one of the only people L had ever pursued that had ever managed to evade him, but that was at least in part because Al hadn't been the one to do the killing. He had never told Katherine anything about it, and she suspected Pat and Don knew a great deal more than her. Perhaps he wasn't as confident about it as he was letting on. He was just treating her like a kid again was all, of course. With a sigh, she sat down heavily on the chair she had previously been seated in and listened to the investigation team again.

"… won't do anything just yet," L was saying. "When I do assign one of you to the job, it will be right here, so anyone who happens to be watching at the time will know. There's nothing saying it will come to that, but it may."

"What exactly do you think they want?" Matsuda asked. "Revenge or something?"

"I'm not sure. Revenge would make sense, but thinking about it, there's a slightly more interesting possibility." He paused thoughtfully, biting his thumbnail as he stared off into space, and said, "Alvin McManerberry isn't unintelligent. There is a possibility that, as they are criminals themselves, they are also hunting Kira."

"Are you suggesting that they might… be looking to _join_ us?" Yagami asked incredulously.

His eyes swiveled toward the ceiling for a moment as he thought, and then L looked back down at Yagami. "It's a fifteen percent possibility. I need more time to gather information before I can be any more certain than that."

"But that's just…" Aizawa said. "Ryuzaki, they're _criminals_, you couldn't possibly be considering _letting _them help."

"I'm not considering anything at the moment. However," L continued, "because they are criminals, they are therefore just as against Kira as any of us in this room are. That is something to keep in mind."

* * *

_Not many funny moments in this chapter, but it shall be made up for in future chapters, I promise._

_And triumphantly returning is the word of the day segment. This time, it's muffins._

_Here's why, just for reference:_

_Comma: Name a random word.  
Comma: Any word.  
Comma: At all.  
Spar: Muffins.  
Comma: Thanks for that.  
Spar: o.O?_

_AIM convos are win for determining words of the day. Not real usernames, by the way. So no AIM stalking :P  
_

_And now, I bid thee all a good day and/or night depending on your time zone. I'm off to do school stuffs now.  
_


	3. Charade

_Yaaaaay new chapter!!_

_Very much like chapter 2 of the original version, with changed details and a fix in an error I made with the timeline in this chapter in the original. But, still, quite similar, but totally rewritten._

_..._

_Okay, I may have stolen a few random sentences here and there, but they're both my fics! I'm allowed!_

_Review replies time!_

_blueness12: I was missed? :3 -feels special- I didn't want to be away for so long, but personal life stuff and... yeah. No fun T-T I'm really sorry! I shall try to make it up by making this fic uberly awesometastic!  
The Jaide Ninja Spork: :O That was possibly the most epic review I've ever gotten. Thank you. Seriously. I love long reviews. I really, really, really want to reply to all of it here T-T I've heard of people getting in trouble for having too-long A/N's before, and mine are long enough as is. I'll reply in a message as soon as I can, I promise!  
Apathetical: I'm glad you think so; I just have issues when one of the genres I pick is humor and not all of it is... well, humorous. But thanks for the reassurance =]_

_And onto story related stuff._

_**Disclaimer**: I seriously forgot this word for a minute O.o seriously. Maybe I really have been away from writing for too long. Either that or I need sleep. Could be both. Anyway, I don't own Death Note, but Pat, Don, Al, and Kat are all mine._

_**Warnings**: Same as always._

_**Quote!**: _  
_"So, really, what's all that about?" he asked, nodding towards the tennis court._

_"Well, I'd assume tennis," she said sarcastically. "I know that's the direction L and his suspect were headed in a few minutes ago, I suppose they __could always just be engaged in a duel to the death with tennis rackets as weapons."_

_"That'd be more interesting than tennis," Pat said._

* * *

The sun sweltered down upon Toudai's campus as Katherine sat on a bench, idly flipping through one of her textbooks. She didn't feel like heading back to the house and being grilled for information on L and Light yet, and Toudai's campus was a nice place to relax in the meantime. She wasn't being followed yet, so there was no reason for her to feel paranoid, and there was a slight breeze blowing across the grounds, cutting the edge off of the warm day. College really wasn't half as bad as she had thought it would be, except for maybe the whole thing with having to go to classes. That could get a little tedious, but it was worth it to have some time to herself.

She found herself glancing up from her textbook as something flashed in the corner of her eye that looked familiar. Surely enough, the first thing she saw was that Shinigami, following Light as usual, who was accompanied by one Hideki Ryuuga, both of them headed towards the tennis court. It was obvious that L was taking the same approach as her; befriending the suspect to get more information. Katherine had a few classes with Light, and had indeed been talking to him more than she really would have liked to in any normal situation. He had yet to ask about a few days ago, when she mentioned seeing the Shinigami, but that would no doubt come eventually. For now, though, they were both stuck pretending to be acquaintances.

However, she had been avoiding L like he was a communicable disease. It had to look a bit suspicious to him, but it was hard not to want to do after discovering he already knew so much about her friends. It wasn't as though she really wanted to; she knew it was her job to get closer to both Light and L because of her advantage with her lack of identity, but it was just rather difficult.

It wasn't long after they faded out of sight that a large crowd had formed around the nearby tennis court, and more and more people were rushing past her to figure out what was going on. One set of feet stopped next to her, and their owner spoke, causing her to jump—not because of the words, but because of the voice.

"So, what's goin' on down there?"

Katherine looked back at Pat. "You _fecking idiot_, are yeh looking to get yerself killed?"

"Not really," he said with a shrug. "_I'm_ not accused of murder, remember?" Katherine sighed and shook her head. "So, really, what's all that about?" he asked, nodding towards the tennis court.

"Well, I'd assume tennis," she said sarcastically. "I know that's the direction L and his suspect were headed in a few minutes ago, I suppose they _could_ always just be engaged in a duel to the death with tennis rackets as weapons."

"That'd be more interesting than tennis," Pat said.

"Look, what're yeh doing here?" she asked. "There can't possibly be anything so important that one of you three couldn't have just called me about it."

"Well," Pat said slowly, "you see—totally Al's idea, I've got nothin' to do with it except valuing my life and following orders," he interrupted himself quickly. Katherine raised an eyebrow. "Yeh were late, so he sent me to make sure yeh hadn't tried to do anything rash that could… er… yeh, know, ruin the plan."

Katherine stared blankly at him for a moment. "So he sent _you_?" Pat shrugged. Katherine rolled her eyes, turning back around on the bench and slamming her book shut. "I'm _not_ a bloody _kid_," she grumbled, stuffing her book into the shoulder-bag sitting next to her. "If I'm the best person for field work, or _so_ he says, then why is he being such an arse about this?"

"I don't know, I'm just the messenger," Pat said with a shrug. "Looks like the tennis match is over," he added, looking down towards the court; the crowds were starting to dissipate, and surely enough, L and Light were leaving the court shortly after. "Obviously wasn't a fight to the death since they're both still alive."

"You almost sound disappointed."

"It still would've been more interesting than bloody _tennis_…"

Katherine rolled her eyes. "Again, you're standing here encouraging death duels at the most prestigious college in the country and _I'm_ the one that needs a babysitter. _Right_."

As the pair passed them, Katherine heard L say something quite interesting—he had just told Light that he believed he was Kira.

It was a hard opportunity to pass up, and she needed to prove that she was at least somewhat useful. There could be some important information to be gained from listening in on this sort of conversation.

"So," Katherine said slowly, once the two had passed, "Al's one hundred percent positive that I don't have a name."

"Apparently, why?" Pat asked suspiciously.

Katherine stood. "There's somewhere I need to be."

"And where's that?"

"Wherever those two are going," she said as she picked up her bag, and then proceeded to walk off.

"W—wait a minute!" Pat took a leap over the back of the bench and stumbled over the bench seat, and caught up with her. "That sounds like something I'm not supposed to let you do."

"Why? It's not dangerous if I don't have a name," she pointed out. "Kira needs a name to kill, therefore I can't die." Pat started to speak, then stopped to think for a moment, giving Katherine the opportunity to continue. "And L already suspects I'm up to something. If I start tailing him before he can get anyone to tail me, it might confuse him, he might take me in for questioning earlier, and this whole charade can finally be put to an end."

Pat blinked. "But… wait a minute… it's still…"

"Still what? Rash?" He shrugged, and then nodded. "And hitting L over the head with a tire iron wasn't?"

"I'm not ever going to live that down, am I?" he said with a sigh.

"Never," Katherine replied promptly. "Now, I've got to catch up with them and get to at least a distance so I can hear what they're saying. You can hang around trying to talk me out of it or go report to Al that I got away. Your pick."

"Hmm. Pointless attempt at talking sense into you or death," he said. "Really not a hard decision there."

"Then at least try to keep up," Katherine said, and picked up her pace.

As they drew closer, the conversation became clearer. Katherine stayed silent as she listened to the two.

"So you think I'm Kira?" Light asked L, laughing.

"I'm only about one percent sure right now," he said. "I hope you aren't, you would be a big help if you aided in helping to search for Kira. I said that for another reason, more to see if we're going to be followed or not."

"What?"

"I'm still suspicious that you are Kira," he said, "but I'm more suspicious that someone else here is Kira now."

Katherine almost tripped over her own feet. "I thought—"

"It's a bluff," Pat said quietly. "I imagine he's looking to see both of yer reactions. Don't act suspicious."

"Oh, right…" she said awkwardly. "I knew that…" She nodded. "Then I've got an idea. Stay back here."

"What—oi, wait a minute!" he said as she picked her pace up again and to catch up with them.

Katherine caught up with Light and L just as Light was asking, "Who is it?"

"I'd bet it's me," she said, quickly switching her speech from English to Japanese. L looked for a moment as though he had been shot—he quite obviously hadn't expected that, and it was nice to finally catch him off guard. "Probably been suspicious since I told him something only Kira would be concerned with. I'd probably even say there's a chance I'm Kira if I wasn't doing my own investigation. Less than ten percent, but it's still something."

"What're you doing an investigation for?" Light asked.

"Well, as a psychology major, I find it pretty interesting," she said with a shrug. "I thought it would be an interesting project, not that I really expected to get anywhere with it. It's all mostly come to dead ends on the Kira side of things, but I have discovered a lot about who's searching for him."

L really hadn't been expecting her to do this. It was rather impetuous on her part, unless she had simply come out of the shadows to throw him off guard. If that was the case, it unfortunately seemed to be working—whatever her intentions were, they were nearly impossible to read through the seeming spontaneity of her actions. And the number couldn't have been a total coincidence—"less than ten percent" was the exact way he had described his own suspicious to the investigation team.

Even more, when they had walked past her the first time, she had been sitting alone on a bench flipping through a textbook. The second time, there had been someone else. L had caught a bit of their conversation and recognized the voice—it was obviously the one that had broken into the room at the Teito Hotel, almost definitely the break-in artist that went by the name Barry O'Connor.

"Do you?" Light was asking. "And who do you think is?"

"I'm not giving out any names," she said with a laugh. "But you probably know your dad is, and that Ryuuga here is at least working for L. There's no telling who L could actually be."

"Right…" Light said slowly.

Behind them, the Shinigami gave a cackle heard only by Light and Katherine. "I think she knows something, Light."

Light looked mildly perturbed for a moment, but refrained from saying anything. No matter how threatening it looked, the Shinigami didn't seem to be on his side. Why it had given him a Death Note was impossible to tell. Being able to see Shinigami didn't at all mean that she knew anything about them; they were as much a mystery to her as any other seemingly mythological beast that was all of a sudden revealed to be reality.

She looked at L. "I do have a lot of theories," she said, "and I'm not exactly an idiot. I made it into Toudai, after all. I don't know how true any of it is, but they all seem to follow the investigation teams' theories as of right now."

"And how," he asked, not expecting a truthful answer at all, "do you know about them."

"I know people," she said simply. "It's easier for someone without a name to investigate Kira freely. Without a name, Kira apparently can't kill, so he can't kill someone with no identity." She glanced behind her and saw Pat still keeping a safe distance from the corner of her eye. "I've got to be going now, anyway," she said slowly. "Remember to talk to the team when you see them again, Ryuuga," she added to L. "I have a few theories that might be of some help."

She knew what she was doing, L thought to himself as she turned down a path beside a bench they were passing. Things would just be a lot easier if he could figure out what it was.

Katherine doubled back around once L and Light had walked a safe distance and met up with Pat again, who was looking utterly perplexed. "What the bloody hell did you just—?"

"Relax," she said. "Yeh're the one who gave me the idea."

"Wh—what? Wait, I didn't—!" he began in protest.

"Oh, but yeh did," she said. "See, the one thing L wasn't expecting on my part was total rashness, so now he's completely thrown off and has no idea what to think."

"And this is a good thing?"

"Yes," she said. "If he's more apt to think that I might be Kira, then he's more apt to call me in to be interrogated sooner. The sooner that happens, the sooner we'll have the connection with L that we need."

* * *

Upon arriving home, her general routine remained the same. Her car would be stolen from her by someone, she would be forced to fix some sort of mess that had been made in the kitchen that was someone's attempt to cook, and she would be grilled for information on Kira and L before she could go take her shift at the monitors. The only real difference this time was settling an argument about why she was back later than usual with Al, who eventually accepted the excuse that she didn't feel like being grilled for information and therefore stayed at campus for longer than usual and that traffic was horrible. She was able to head back into the monitor room only after this was settled, deciding she would grab something to eat later. Right now, it was more important to figure out what the investigation team's opinion on her would be now.

When she turned on the monitors and sat down, the first thing she noticed was that there were three people missing. There was Mogi, who was off on field work recently and was therefore rarely around. However, and very strangely, Yagami was also missing from the hotel room. Even stranger was that L apparently hadn't returned yet. The second thing she noticed was that the atmosphere inside the hotel room looked so tense that it almost seemed to be drifting into the monitor room in the house itself. Something was going on, and it certainly wasn't good.

It was hours before L returned; Katherine continued checking the monitors at fifteen minute intervals and caught L as he was just sitting in his regular chair in his regular, rather strange crouched position with a cup of coffee, so he had apparently just returned from wherever he had been. The atmosphere of the room seemed even more uneasy than the first time she had flipped on the monitors now. After a few minutes of silence, L spoke.

"It doesn't seem to have been caused by Kira," he said. The tension eased off at this. "Indirectly, it might have been, because of stress from the case itself. However, as every heart attack caused by Kira in the past has lead to immediate death—"

"That we know of," Aizawa interrupted. "You already figured out that Kira can manipulate the circumstances around the heart attack."

"Yeah, but there's no proof he can manipulate the results of the heart attack itself," Ukita pointed out. "But still… it just seems…"

"I'm aware of how it seems," L said, "and we may have a new suspect yet."

"That other To-Oh freshmen representative?" Aizawa asked.

"Yes. It seems she's been acting suspicious for the sake of avoiding suspicion. She even mentioned today that she knew Yagami-san was on the investigation team. For him to have a heart attack shortly thereafter, regardless of the fact that he is still alive at the moment, is too suspicious to ignore," L said. "While it could still be a coincidence, my suspicions have risen to seventeen percent."

"D—dammit…" Katherine said under her breath. "This is bad…" This had been the result she was looking for, but not like this. She didn't want to be blamed for killing anyone on the investigation team. Granted Yagami wasn't dead yet, and she didn't know whether Light would stoop so low as to killing his own father to have suspicion taken away from him. She didn't see how anyone could do something like that, but Light was Kira, and his father was indeed opposed to Kira….

"Is chief still doing well right now?" Matsuda asked.

"Yes," L said, "but it's important that we keep a close watch on him. I still believe it's more likely that Yagami-san's heart attack was a complete coincidence," he added, at which Katherine breathed a sigh of relief. "It still seems more likely to me that this Katherine Lynton is working with McManerberry on something. It's still impossible to say what it is at this point."

"Oi, my shift." Katherine stood up and turned around.

"Be my guest," she said to Don, who was standing behind the sofa. "Yeh did miss that Yagami had a heart attack."

"Did he?" Don said, surprised. "Kira?"

"Probably not, 'e's still alive and doin' well at the moment. They'll just be keepin' an eye on him over the next few days."

"Be strange if it's only a coincidence," he said, staring at the monitors.

"Yeah…" Katherine gave one last look back at them before walking towards the door. "Have fun. I'm off to bed."

* * *

It was a few days later, back in the monitor room after a slow Monday spent at college, Katherine was stretched across the sofa, an empty plate on the floor in front of her that had been filled with rice about a half an hour ago, watching the investigation team discuss the strange case of Misora Naomi for what had to be the twentieth time since the cameras had first been installed. It was a normal enough day in the Kira case, or as normal as normal could be. More deaths, no new developments, and a few suspects that were no more than suspects without the evidence to prove anything—it seemed to have been a slow Monday for the investigation team as well.

Katherine was close to giving up hope of anything interesting happening completely when, on the second monitor on the third row, Watari entered the hotel room looking quite a bit more troubled than what was entirely usual for him.

"Ryuzaki."

L looked back at the old man. "What is it?"

"Turn on Sakura TV. Something… something big appears to be happening."

Katherine stood from the sofa quickly and went out into the living room. She snatched the remote from Pat, who was aimlessly flipping through channels, and, ignoring his protest, turned on Sakura TV.

"In other words," the reporter on the television was saying, "we are practically reporting this message as hostages of Kira himself."

"… Oh," Pat said. "Right. Important."

"Hostages?" Don said from the chair across the room. "What exactly does that mean?"

"I'd guess it means that if they don't show these videos," Al said as Katherine took a seat on the sofa, "they'll be killed."

* * *

_And that doth be what we refer to as "__a wrap."_

_Or is it? O.o_

_Of course not! We forgot the random word of the day!_

_Which is planoblastic. Don't ask me what it means, because I'm not quite sure myself._

_And now it's a wrap._

_Aaaah, how I adore cliffhangers...  
_


	4. Broadcast

_Skipped a day this time. I ended up staying up all night last night watching a movie with my brother. He works night shift, so he stays up all night the night before so he can sleep the day before he's got to work, and I generally stay up with him and prod him awake whenever he starts falling asleep too early. So yeah. Didn't get much work done last night._

_But, 'tis done now, and I 'tis happeh._

_Wow, four reviews this time around. I only ever got email alerts for two, which is weird, but at least it allows me a pleasant surprise. Thanks, guys!!  
_

_Review replies?_

_blueness: I can't help but feel guilty about it. It's the curse of a writer who cares T-T But hey, at least it's keeping me writing at a pretty much consistent pace this time.  
The Jaide Ninja Spork: That would be an interesting dream xD I'd be the weirdo that woke up from it laughing hysterically and probably scare the crap out of my nephew since he sleeps in the room next to mine. But yeah--the suspicion and the greater time delay were two of the things that really annoyed me in the earlier chapters. That was part of the timeline issue that I had; the other part was that I noticed I included Yagami's heart attack and the broadcasting of the Kira tapes on the same day; seeing that annoyed me to absolutely no end, since that made no logical or chronological sense whatsoever. Sorry for the random rant in the reply... there were just so many things in the original that ticked me off that hardly anyone else seemed to notice T-T Haha, fireworks are the best. Lucky they're legal to set off where I live without any kind of license, which is totally awesome xD Thanks for the awesome review, and sorry I never got to reply to the first one Dx I figured I'd be better off replying here, regardless of length, just so I don't go all randomly amnesiac and forget again.  
Apathetical: You've led me to come up with a new meaning for planoblastic. It is a word, but it turned out to just be a boring term to do with underwater plants or something. I believe I'll post the new definitions at the bottom of this chapter.  
Kairi the Strong: But wouldn't it be fun to watch if it did happen? xD_

_Story stuffs:_

_**Disclaimer**: No. Owns. Except my original characters, I'm still claiming them for now._

_**Warnings**: The usual._

_**Quotey-thing**:_  
_"So it was Yagami in the armored vehicle?" Don said._

_"The old bloke 'at had a heart attack?" Pat said, looking between the monitors. "Isn't he in the hospital?"_

_"Well, unless studio G-6 is doubling as a hospital now, I'd say no," Don said._

* * *

A moment after the news anchor let the tapes roll, the screen switched to a white screen with four black, Old English letters written upon it, spelling out the name Kira. The Old English font was no doubt meant to intimidate L.

"D… d'yeh think maybe it's just Sakura TV trying to increase their popularity?" Katherine asked quietly. "It would be _beyond_ terrible, but…" The others stayed silent.

There definitely was something strange about the whole thing, even as an electronic voice spoke after a short moment.

"_I am Kira._ _If this tape was aired at exactly 5:59 p.m. of April 18, then it should be 5:59:38 right now. Thirty-nine seconds. Forty…. Please change the channel to Taiyou TV. The news anchor will die of heart failure at exactly six o'clock p.m._"

The four in the room looked at each other for a moment, then Al rushed off into the monitor room and turned on a television in there and switched it to the correct channel. He glanced over at the monitor as L was telling one of the task force to change the channel and instructing Watari to bring in two more television sets. It was only a moment later that the news anchor's hand gripped his chest, and he slumped over the news desk, motionless.

"Th—that's…" Katherine, who had moved to watch from the doorway, shook her head in disbelief. "It _has _to be Kira, but…"

"_That was punishment for always speaking out against me on TV._" Katherine turned her head to look back at the television in the living room. "_Surely one person isn't enough to prove my identity, so I will take another sacrifice. The target is a commentator on the same network who always opposes my actions._" Katherine looked back through the doorway at the small television in the monitoring room as another man was shown having a heart attack.

"This isn't Kira," Al said suddenly.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Katherine asked incredulously. "Who else can cause heart attacks like that?"

"I know that!" Al snapped, and Katherine took a step back despite being the length of an entire room away from him already. "But Kira has some sense of justice, even if it _is_ a bit blurred. _This_ is cold-blooded murder. Kira doesn't care who opposes him."

"Then what're you thinking?"

Al shook his head. "I'm not sure yet, but…" He shook his head again. "You keep an eye on this television and the monitors," he said, suddenly rushing towards the door into the living room, pulling out his cell phone. Katherine did a sidestep and let him through before hurrying to the sofa in the monitor room. Head pounding, she tried to keep a watch on both the currently chaotic Taiyou TV station and the monitors of the investigation team. Both sides were growing increasingly chaotic as Matsuda tried to reach Sakura TV through the telephone—no doubt what Al was trying to do—and Ukita rushed out the door, seeing going down there in person as the only way.

Silence took over their investigation headquarters at this, and Katherine could hear the Kira tape from Sakura TV playing through the open doorway.

"_I wish to create a peaceful world, one with no crime. If we all work together for this utopia, it won't be hard at all to achieve. As long as no one tries to oppose me, no one will have to die. I won't kill you as long as you don't make a stand against me in public, even if you do oppose me. It won't take too long for this world to become a paradise that could never otherwise be attainable._ _The world will be full of only those with good conscience. Take a moment and imagine a world with no evil. Imagine if the police would work together with the God of the New World to achieve such justice._"

Taiyou TV interrupted halfway through the last sentence, and Katherine turned her head to watch the television screen. "Please stay calm, everyone. We will get more details on the tapes being broadcasted over Sakura TV soon. Right now, we are live at the front entrance of Sakura TV." The television switched from the Taiyou TV logo that had been posted amidst the panic. "This is a live feed from the front of the Sakura TV station—we do not have a correspondent there at this time, but what you are seeing is live footage."

Katherine squinted at the screen. "It… can't be…" she mumbled, standing quickly from the sofa and hurrying over to the television. "No… no, it can't—"

It was, and the investigation team wasn't quick to miss it. Katherine's eyes were back on the monitors when she heard Aizawa yell, and she watched L just barely manage to stop him from leaving. Shaking slightly, though whether it was from fear or anger she still wasn't sure, she looked back at the television in front of her, confirmed the body lying in front of the station to be Ukita, and turned to head for the doorway.

She glanced around the corner to see Al pacing back and forth between the kitchen and living room with his cell phone. Pat and Don were still listening to Sakura TV's broadcast, and none of them were paying very close attention to the hallway. This was the only real opportunity she had—but for what? To stop the broadcast? She doubted she really could, but something had to be done, and anyone Kira could kill wasn't going to be able to do it. Walking on tiptoes and going only when Al paced back into the kitchen, she slipped up the hallway and into the open door that led into her room.

After grabbing her bag from the top of her bed, she quickly dropped to the floor and crawled under the bed, where she lifted the loose floorboard. The death note was still there, safe as could be, though perhaps not so much once she snatched it up with enough force to claw a few scratch marks on the front cover. Quickly, she stuffed it in her bag, slid out from under the bed, stood up, and promptly dashed for the window to wrench it open.

"And just where d'yeh think yeh're goin'?" Katherine closed her eyes and gripped the windowsill—five more seconds and she could have escaped without an issue. Just _five_ more seconds.

"I'm going," she replied to Al without looking back, "to actually do somethin' about this while there's still time for somethin' to be done."

"And yeh think yeh'll do any better than Ukita did?"

"Ukita had a name," Katherine said. "I _don't_."

"And that's only a _theory_," Al said. "All right, so maybe Kira can't kill anyone who doesn't know their own name. But _this_ isn't Kira, and they proved that when they killed Ukita. Kira had no way of getting the names of anyone on the investigation team—"

"We did," she pointed out, turning to face him now. "We know all of their names except L. They're perfectly open about who they are with each other and with L. And Kira apparently has some sort of inside source on the Kira case with the police, since he managed to get all of their information. He didn't necessarily know Ukita was on the investigation team, but he could have known him _as_ a police detective. He saw someone opposing him, knew who it was, and killed on sight and—_what_?" she interrupted her own statement as Al shook his head.

"This isn't Kira's style, he's never killed those who opposed him in the past. He only kills criminals. Yeh just can't deal with the fact that there might be someone else with a—with the same powers as Kira an' that we might have to start this investigation over."

Hand gripping the windowsill behind her, Katherine shook her head. "I could stand here and argue for another hour," she said, "but I'd rather actually get something productive done for once." She turned around again and, ignoring the protests that followed, slipped through the window and landed on the lawn below it. She looked over her shoulder, back through the window. "I'll put a jacket or something over my head when I get there," she said. "If he can't see me, I'll be fine."

She looked back around and walked quickly towards her car before he could protest anymore, pulling her keys out of her pocket before she got there.

She had no idea what she would do when she got there. It wasn't as though she had the authority to storm in and tell the director in charge of the broadcast to stop it. But somehow, it seemed like the right thing to do. At the least, it would increase the suspicion that she was Kira and she would be brought in for interrogation once the broadcast did end, getting them closer to the investigation team. If everything went well in that sense, then she could have a spot sealed on the investigation team. That was the main reason she had grabbed her own death note—she didn't know when the next time she would see this house was, and she wanted to be sure to get it beforehand.

She reached into her pocket again as she opened the driver side door on her car. She pulled out first a pack of cigarettes, and then her lighter, stuffed them in her bag, and threw it all into the passenger seat before sitting down behind the wheel herself.

* * *

It wasn't more than five minutes after he left the hospital that Yagami found he was being followed. There was no doubt in it; at the speed he was travelling in an attempt to make it to Sakura TV in time to stop the broadcast, there was no other reason for this car to have been tailgating him for the past mile and a half. Though obviously old and slightly rusted on the surface, the car was able to keep up with the armored police van with no problems. It was unsettling, but as Kira was more than likely somewhere near the Sakura TV station, it was doubtful that it was him.

The station was straight ahead, only a block down at the next right turn, and the car followed this time as well. The driver, who had a hood pulled over their head and sunglasses on, was impossible to distinguish, but it seemed that they were headed to the same place. Now it was only a matter of seeing just how far they would follow.

Surely enough, the old car stayed back, coming to a halt at the left side of the building's glass front, as the armored van crashed through the front of the station. From her car, Katherine gave a low whistle—she admired the van driver's perseverance, but she wasn't about to do that with her car. Pulling her hood up further and grabbing her bag from her passenger seat, she opened the door, shoved her keys in her pocket, and made a sprint for the new entrance into the building the van had made.

The van's driver was just exiting, a suit jacket pulled over his head. Katherine heard a rather spooked security guard tell the man where the Kira tapes were being broadcast, and she made a quick dash for the elevator, only taking her hood and sunglasses on once she made it inside. Regardless of whether or not she could be killed by Kira, she didn't want to take the chance after watching someone die on live television for attempting to do the same thing she was doing now.

As the door of the elevator started to close, the van driver made it, and Katherine found her mood quickly turning from relief to utter shock.

"You!" she said, pointing. Yagami stopped in his tracks, looking a little shocked himself now. "You're—you had a heart attack, you're supposed to be in the hospital!"

"And how is that your concern?" he asked, entering the elevator now and taking his hand off the door. He reached to press the button for the second floor, saw it was already lit, and lowered his hand slowly. "Why are you here?" he asked suspiciously.

"Same reason as you, to stop the broadcast," she said, closing her eyes as the elevator began climbing—that never was a sensation she had liked, and she doubted it was one she would ever get used to. "Only I'd have to use empty threats to get the job done, which I doubt would work, so I'm… not… really sure what I'm doing here," she finished lamely. She flinched when the elevator stopped, and was the first to rush out when the doors opened.

"That makes absolutely no sense," Yagami said impatiently. "Why are you looking to stop the broadcast?"

"It made more sense in my head!" she said defensively. "Look, I'm looking for Kira just like you and the investigation team are," she said. Yagami froze at this. "You know who I am already," she said. "'Katherine Lynton' ring any bells?"

* * *

The television in the living room was thoroughly abandoned as the Kira broadcast went off, and it was right about this time that, in the next room over, Pat proclaimed, "Got it!", and half of the monitors on the wall of the monitoring room, a half which had been showing static for at least five minutes, turned back on. Now, rather than the investigation headquarters of the Kira case, these screens were showing security cameras from small portions of the first and second floor of Sakura TV. Among them was studio G-6 and the hall right outside it.

"So it was Yagami in the armored vehicle?" Don said.

"The old bloke 'at had a heart attack?" Pat said, looking between the monitors. "Isn't he in the hospital?"

"Well, unless studio G-6 is doubling as a hospital now, I'd say no," Don said. "No sound?" he added.

"They'd prob'ly be out by the time I got through with that," Pat said. "Sakura TV doesn't seem to take security very lightly. Looks like more police are arriving," he added, nodding at a monitor showing the front entrance; a police car had just stopped there. Moments after two officers stepped out of it, they fell to the ground. "That makes a count of three police and two journalists so far," Pat said, sitting back in the computer chair. "Wonder how many more." He looked around the room. "Where'd Al go?"

"Out here." A hand waved in front of the doorway.

On the monitors of L's hotel room, something seemed to be happening. L had just contacted Kitamura at the police station, and Watari had just answered his own cell phone after giving it a mildly confused look.

"Yes?"

In the living room, apparently replying to the old man's inquiry, Al said, "I would like to speak with Ryuzaki."

"And this is…?" Watari replied patiently.

"Restricted," Al replied. "Just like I'd imagine the caller ID on your cell phone said."

"Of course," Watari agreed, and held the phone away from him for a moment. "Ryuzaki." L, still instructing Kitamura on how to handle the situation with the police, looked over his shoulder at the old man. "Someone wishes to speak with you."

"Yes, then carry that out, vice-director. No, please do not hang up yet." L held the phone away. "Who?"

"It's 'restricted,' apparently." L held out his hand, and Watari handed him the phone.

"Who is this?"

"Before I answer that, I think it would be beneficial for you to know that one of your number made it into the Sakura TV station and is currently retrieving the Kira tape that was broadcast, along with the others sent in. Yagami Soichiro?"

Brow furrowed, L looked at the television showing the front of the Sakura TV building. "He was the one in the armored van."

"That would be my guess."

"Please hold." Quickly, L switched back to the other phone. "Vice-director, the one who entered in the armored van is Director Yagami."

"Yagami? I thought he was in the hospital!" Kitamura paused on the other end for a moment, then said, "L, let Yagami know it won't be more than five minutes!" He hung up hurriedly. L switched back to the other phone, handing Aizawa back his. "Now who is this?"

"You'd probably know me as Alvin McManerberry. One of my own number is also in the Sakura TV station for the same reasons as Yagami-san; to retrieve those tapes. Not my idea, sort of the same situation that you recently had with Ukita-san."

"Ryuzaki; it's Yagami-san." L looked back at Watari once again, who was holding up the phone lined to the emergency pagers, and held the other phone away from his ear. "Hit the return button and give me the phone."

Watari flipped the phone open, pressed a button, and handed it to L.

* * *

Yagami had just arrived back on the first floor from the elevator when his phone rang, moments after he had paged Watari. Katherine had opted to take the stairs back down and had yet to reach the first floor. Yagami quickly answered the phone, standing at the side of the elevator.

"Ryuzaki, this is Asahi!" he said.

"It's me, Yagami-san," L replied. "I know you were the one in the armored car."

"Yes… I couldn't stand listening to that broadcast and not doing anything. However, I have all of the tapes and will bring them to you, I only need to know where you are."

"I haven't changed rooms yet," L replied. "Are you all right?"

"Better than all right—I haven't felt more alive since the day I was born," Yagami replied firmly, though he still sounded slightly weak and out of breath. "More importantly, how do I proceed now? The front entrance would be dangerous, but would it be safe to use the armored car again?"

"Yagami-san," L said, "please rest for five minutes and then boldly come out from the front entrance."

"The front?" Yagami repeated quietly, more to himself than to L.

"The other who entered," L said. "I have been informed that this is Katherine Lynton. She is to be brought in for questioning. Please make sure that this is done. I believe she will have no problems following you back, and as it is doubtful that she is Kira, there would be no point having her formally placed under arrest unless she refuses to cooperate."

"Of course, Ryuzaki."

Katherine hurried down the stairs and into the main lobby, hood pulled back up and sunglasses back on, just as Yagami was hanging up his phone. "Ryuzaki?" she asked.

"Yes, and he has instructed me to have you brought in for questioning."

"All right," she said, "but I'm taking my car."

* * *

_As promised, the new planoblastic defenitions._

_Planoblast - v. - the act of blasting a plan, especially one that was originally halfway decent, all to hell.  
_

_Planoblastic - adk. - Word used to describe a plan that has been subject to planoblast._

_Adkektive (adk.) - n. - Like an adjective, only more epic (random AIM typos with definitions applied to them, anyone?)_

_And the word of the day?_

_Unspasmodic._

_I doth bid thee adieu.  
_


	5. Interrogation

_Ugh._

_UGH._

_UUUUGH._

_I litterally stayed up all night working on this; I just couldn't find the focus to get it done as efficiently as usual, so now it's 9:21 A.M. and I'm still awake and I've got school stuff to do and... ugh._

_I love writing, don't get me wrong. I just hate insomnia keeping me awake **and** unfocused all night._

_Aaaaanyway. Review replies?_

_**Apathetical**: Well, as long as it's the good kind of epic, I'm fine with it :) And yes, it does need to be put in the dictionary xD  
__**Poprocks311**: Thanks! :D I'm updating as fast as I can to keep it going at a decent pace!  
**Ray-nee-chan**: Thanks, and I've got every intention of keeping this earlier after the epic fail wrote myself into on the original, haha xD_

_Story stuffs next._

_**Disclaimer**: No owns, except OCs._

_**Warnings**:... yeah. Y'know._

_**Quote?**:_  
_"Now, you're positive he said 'boldly out from the front entrance?' Not 'out from the back exit' or 'cowering underneath a tarp out the front entrance' or—"_

_"I'm positive, and it's been five minutes," Yagami said. "I've found that the best thing to do in situations like this is just to trust Ryuzaki."_

_Katherine scratched the back of her head awkwardly. It just didn't make sense. Maybe she might live, but if Yagami just strolled out the front of Sakura TV like he owned the place, the likeliness that he would simply have another heart attack, this one caused less by stress and more by a psycho with a death note, was at one hundred percent._

* * *

L returned to the other cell phone once Yagami had hung up, giving Watari back the emergency line as he did. If this was his only chance to put his previous case to rest, then he wasn't going to miss the opportunity. Only twice had he been outsmarted by his suspects. There was now, with Kira—even with the cases still going on, Kira was always a step ahead, somehow. Then, there were those murders in Ireland, if they could even be accurately called murders. They would have been dismissed as coincidence, no doubt, had those cryptic letters not been left at all of the crime scenes.

That case, he had never solved. It was the only case that had ever stumped him in the end, the only case he had ever been forced to abandon. And now, with his prime suspect from that case looking to help him, things just seemed off.

"Your subordinate is being brought here for ques—" He pulled the phone away and looked at the front—apparently he had already lost his chance, as Al had already hung up. L shut this phone as well and handed it back to Watari. Perhaps it was better off this way; the Kira task force had nothing to do with that case, and discussing it in front of them would lead to more questions. Maybe there were a few similarities in the two cases, but hardly enough to matter. Alvin McManerberry was hardly Kira-suspect material. He was a criminal himself, and there would be no point in him killing his own kind.

There was always a chance that he might have confided in his subordinates, which meant that Katherine Lynton could have valuable information on both cases. If this was the case, she almost definitely had a spot on the investigation team.

* * *

"Now, you're _positive_ he said 'boldly out from the front entrance?' Not 'out from the back exit' or 'cowering underneath a tarp out the front entrance' or—"

"I'm positive, and it's been five minutes," Yagami said. "I've found that the best thing to do in situations like this is just to trust Ryuzaki."

Katherine scratched the back of her head awkwardly. It just didn't make sense. Maybe she might live, but if Yagami just strolled out the front of Sakura TV like he owned the place, the likeliness that he would simply have another heart attack, this one caused less by stress and more by a psycho with a death note, was at one hundred percent. It was just totally and utterly illogical—but if it was what L said to do, then she supposed L knew what he was talking about. It was doubtful he was willing to risk losing two members of the task force in one night. One was more than enough as it was.

Even so, Katherine had every intention of keeping her hood pulled up and her sunglasses on. If, somehow, she wasn't as Kira-proof as she thought she was, then she didn't want to risk getting killed. She was also quite careful to hide behind Yagami, as he was probably at least a foot taller than her, on the way out.

As she exited the station, however, she found herself stopping to look around in wonder at the huge shield blocking them from view, made up of various police vehicles, from cars to busses, and a number of officers with bullet proof shields on the ground, atop the vehicles, surrounding the entire front of the station. She found herself unable to stop gawking for long enough to remember how to move her legs for a few moments.

She finally shook herself mentally and managed to walk to her car while still gazing in awe at the shield, only tripping over her own feet and stumbling a couple times. Once safely inside her car, she dug her keys out of her pocket, put the correct one in the ignition and turned it, then waiting with the car idling for Yagami to get in the police car. Once it was moving, she followed him out of the front lot of the station and onto the road. While she was sure of what hotel the investigation team was currently staying in, she wasn't entirely sure of _where_ it was, so she would definitely need to keep behind the police car.

* * *

Once at the hotel room, once the tapes had been handed over and discussed, the interrogation was underway. Arms crossed and feet on the coffee table in front of her that separated her from the investigation team, her attempt to look confident and slightly defiant was totally ruined by the nervous tick under her left eye and fact that she couldn't bring herself to actually look anyone in the eye when she spoke to them. She had a feeling things weren't going to go very well, but it was unclear whether or not this was a good thing or a bad thing, since she wasn't sure what approach she should take to seal a spot on the task force, anyway.

It was all rather confusing, so she resolved just to retain her current demeanor for the whole of the interrogation: failing at pretending to be perfectly calm.

She found some relief in that the investigation team themselves all looked rather nervous, and seemed to be waiting for either L or Yagami to ask the first question. L was the only one that was remaining perfectly, if not unnaturally, calm and stoic.

They all eventually gave up on L, and Aizawa took the initiative to speak.

"All right, let's start this off simple," he said. "Explain."

Katherine blinked. "That's not simple, what am I supposed to expl—?"

"Everything."

"That's not very helpful, can't you be a little more specific?"

"You've apparently said in the past that you know things about Kira."

Katherine took a foot off the table and looked across the small table at the investigation team, avoiding looking at L—he was obviously measuring her reactions to the questions, but she still didn't appreciate being stared at in such a manner. She supposed it was a good thing she had never been arrested before; she probably couldn't have taken a formal interrogation.

"Well, yes and no. A lot of it is only theories…" she replied. "But a lot of it is theories that all of you already have. No idea _how_ he's killing, but he needs a name and a face in order to."

"And what about Ukita?" Yagami asked.

"I said it's just a theory…" she said. "You all were following the same theory up until this point. One we had, probably the newest theory, was that… I mean, I don't know about it yet, I don't…" she trailed off, brought a hand to her face for a moment and shook her head. "It's a little… well, inconvenient, I guess. We think this might be someone else with Kira's power, only… a little different."

"_Another_ Kira?" Matsuda said. "But that's…"

"Ridiculous," Aizawa finished for him. "What evidence is there of it?"

"There isn't any evidence, but…" She bit her fingernail, a nervous habit she had developed through smoking whenever she needed a cigarette and couldn't have one. "It wasn't my idea, but it makes sense if you think about it. Kira's never cared about the media before. He's fine with letting them have their fun as long as he can keep having his. He killed the FBI agents, and they weren't criminals, but they were trying to find him. He only kills criminals and those he sees as a threat. He's never looked at the media as a threat before, so why start now?"

L was fully aware that the other three members of the task force were once again looking at him, more than likely hoping for some sort of answer that might counter such horrible claims as a second Kira, but L didn't have any to give. It was a thought in his own mind, but he didn't want to think of it as a solid fact until seeing the rest of the tapes. The basis on the theory was fairly strong, but it still needed strengthening.

Regardless, he had no intentions of speaking until the others finished questioning, which they obviously weren't done doing yet. They needed to develop their own opinions beforehand.

"Well…" Matsuda said slowly, looking between Aizawa and Yagami, "it _does_ make more sense like that. And if Kira was going to do something like this in the first place, don't you think he would have done it before now? He didn't have any reason to get desperate to get rid of us since we haven't… really been making much progress lately…" he finished offhandedly.

"Yeah…" Aizawa agreed with a sigh. "Kira wouldn't have any way of knowing that, but he hasn't been given any reason to assume that we are getting close to him. The only thing he's done so far in the case without much thought has been killing Lind L. Taylor, and he learned to be more careful from that."

"He's been learning the entire time," Yagami agreed. "There were the experiments with the criminals in prison to see how far he could stretch his powers, and then there were the FBI agents. Every time, he's gotten more and more careful. The videos would be a huge risk."

"Because they could probably be traced to someone," Aizawa said. "That's something that Kira would think about."

"But this would mean we'd have to start all over again," Matsuda pointed out. The optimism in the face of this new theory suddenly drained from the room at this. Katherine sighed.

"That was my first thought," she said. "But… it's like Aizawa-san said, the videos could probably be traced to someone more easily. Kira has never left any physical evidence before, he seems totally against the idea, and the tapes count as physical evidence—the _first_ physical evidence in this case, if I'm not mistaken."

"Well, there were the letters left by some of the criminals who died of heart attacks," Yagami said, "but it's a different class of physical evidence, because there's no doubt at all at this point that a suspect has actually been in contact with the tapes."

"Whereas those letters were…" Katherine thought, then shook her head. "Mind control? There's no telling until we manage to figure out _how_ Kira's killing. And with these tapes, we can probably get solid enough evidence to arrest someone who knows _something_."

"Well, there's another thing," Aizawa said. "It's not very important right now, but there's the question of whether or not the two Kiras are actually working together or not."

"And if they're not," Katherine said, "then they probably will. If they're not, it would be good to try to get to the second Kira suspect before they meet the first Kira. The second Kira doesn't seem as smart, but under the instruction of the real Kira, things could get bad. And we've gotten off track," she added. She hated to bring it up, but they did have to finish the questioning before she could be any sort of part of the investigation team. "I'm not on the investigation team _yet_. I'm still being interrogated."

"Right," Aizawa agreed, shaking his head. "You're still a suspect. What were you doing at the Sakura TV station?"

"I wanted to try to get the tapes," she said. "After seeing… what happened to Ukita, I figured I was the only one investigating who could do it safely. I have no name, and I'm still convinced that both Kiras somehow need a name. Maybe the new Kira can tell someone's name by seeing their face somehow, I don't know. But I had myself convinced of it, then on my way there I figured that it would probably be a good idea—just to be safe—to cover my face anyway. I was less likely to be killed, but it still didn't seem to be a good idea to just let this Kira see me."

"How did you plan to get the tapes?"

Katherine shrugged. "I hadn't really thought it through when I left…" she said. "It was really irrational, but… seeing what was going on … I just couldn't sit back and watch it happen. I didn't know how I was going to get into the station or how I was going to convince them to hand over the tapes. I just knew that I was going there to get the tapes. I didn't care how I had to do it." She paused abruptly, realizing how this sounded, and quickly added, "Except kill. I wouldn't have killed anyone. Threatened, maybe threw a few punches if I had to, but I wouldn't have killed."

"Off the subject of just the happenings of tonight," Yagami said, cutting across both Aizawa and Matsuda, who had both looked on the verge of asking another question, "we are going to need to know when the four of you moved here from Ireland."

Katherine sat back and looked up at the ceiling. "I'm really horrible with dates," she said slowly, "but I can tell you it was after the Lind L. Taylor incident. I only saw that on Metacafe, it was one of the things that got me interested in the case."

"What name is the house in?"

"Umm…" she looked back down at Yagami. "Johann Conner…? Maybe. It was one of Don's aliases that he actually has fake files for, but I know it wasn't one of the ones he usually uses. We were trying to keep a low profile, given what we were here doing."

"We'll be needing copies of the papers on the house to know for sure when it was purchased."

Katherine nodded. "I'll get them here as soon as possible."

"And the car?"

"I've had it for awhile, haven't gotten it insured yet over here. Stolen plate at the moment, off of a car in a junkyard, hence why it's not a number that's been reported stolen or missing." She looked around at them. "Enough information yet? Can we have a vote? All in favor of me not being Kira?" She raised her own hand… and no one else raised theirs. She sighed and lowered her arm. "All right, why?"

"I'm just still not sure," Aizawa said slowly. "There's not enough solid evidence to prove or disprove it."

"Okay," she said, "I'll take that. Yagami-san? Same reasons?"

"Yes," he confirmed. "If the papers on the house match up with the time period you claim to have moved in, then I will be less suspicious."

"Okay. And Matsuda-san, I'm assuming you agree with them?" she asked.

After a moment of thought, he replied with, "Yes?" in more the form of a suggestion than a statement.

"All right." She turned her head to look at L, as did the other three now. "So, what's the verdict?"

As he chewed his thumbnail in silent contemplation, his eyes swiveled up to the ceiling for a moment, then back down in another moment. "Five percent," he said firmly. "With confirmation from the documents on the house, I will lower it to three percent. Because you have now seen all of our faces, in person, you will be required to stay under the surveillance of the task force at all times. Because of this, in order to get the documents here, one of the three currently still at the house will have to come to the hotel and give the documents to Watari. You will be allowed to leave the premise, but only under the escort of a member of the task force."

Katherine shrugged. "As long as I'm still participating in the investigation, I'll take it."

"And for the 'second Kira' theory," L continued, "I was thinking the same thing myself. The amount of circumstantial evidence is already sizeable, but in order to gather more, it will be required that we all watch and analyze the rest of the tapes from this standpoint. We need as much evidence as possible to support such a claim."

* * *

Katherine lay awake on the sofa she had sat on earlier for her interrogation at around midnight, staring up at the ceiling. All but L was asleep—she very much wondered how often he actually did sleep, being that she had never even seen him do so on the monitors—and he was in the next room watching the other tapes on a television. As only a large doorway existed between the two rooms, she was listening to them herself, which was enough for her to form an opinion; it wasn't necessary to see the word "Kira" printed across the television screen in order to understand what was being said.

So far, it still didn't seem much like the original Kira to her. It definitely didn't seem like something Yagami Light would do, for what she knew about him as a person, even. It wasn't that hard to tell that this Kira, or so he called himself, was perfectly willing to kill innocent people to get what he wanted. Regardless of whether the police said no to helping Kira, Kira required that either L or the director of the investigation in the police force appear on television.

The terms were more specific; as insurance if the answer was yes, the director and vice-director and other high-ups in the police agency, as well as L would have to appear on television agreeing to cooperate with Kira. If the answer was no, Kira would take either the life of the director or L; if the choice made by the police agency was L, he would have to appear on Sakura TV, and Kira would determine the truth. If he determined the L to be a fake, then a number of police officers around the world would be killed for compensation.

It was a terrible situation and a solution would have to be thought of very quickly; if one wasn't thought of, regardless of whether or not this was the Kira they knew or someone entirely different, then the price to pay would be a high one.

* * *

_And that's that._

_I think the word of the day is "tired." As in I'm too "tired" to think of anything creative or go to a random-word generator._

_So, on that bombshell, I'm off to go do schoolwork and then sleep the day away. _

_Oh, I love how homeschool fits around my insomnically nocturnal schedule.  
_


	6. Paradox

_Yeah, it's an update. n.n And I'm quite happy about it._

_I know it's relatively short, only just over three thousand words, but this was the particular part I wanted to cover in this chapter, and it was a good stopping point. So... sorry..._

_It's chapters like this in particular that often annoyed me so much in my last story. It seemed to me after reading over them again like Katherine simply knew too much. Even knowing that Light was Kira, there were certain things that she wouldn't know, i.e. whether or not there actually was a second Kira. I want it to be realistic. I go spaztic over character development. So I want to make it so she only knows as much as she should be able to know by knowing that Light is Kira, and that she isn't able to infer too much._

_I also very much prefer the investigation team being suspicious of her for this time. Honestly, it's only logical. But yes, L still doubts she is Kira given who she's working with, given that Kira himself probably wouldn't be working with criminals. This isn't to say he isn't suspicious of her intentions, however, and he's not going to be quick to trust her or anyone working with Al._

_So, shall I reply to reviews?_

_Apathetical: No worries, I appreciate your cheesiness xD Thanks! Meh, insomnia's still going strong but it's luckily not as bad as it could be. Hah, who knows how many phones he has? Granted they're probably all actually in Watari's name, given Watari is no doubt a freaking zillionaire._

_Ray-nee-chan: Thanks muchly! I know this wasn't a... particularly fast update, but it's here! Hopefully I'll get around to updating more now. This was just a hard chapter to write since I hate copying so much directly from the manga and this one really called for it..._

_Shaley Wiles: Ah, no big. I've got tons of readers who never bother reviewing, so just the fact that you did is awesome n.n Thanks, and I'll definitely be trying to update more regularly!_

_I Major in Magick: Hahaaaaa that's one chapter I definitely won't be leaving out! xD_

_god of all: Thanks very much, and I'll be sure to try to update more often from now on._

_Sybil Corvax: :3... xD_

_Hoookay, onto other things._

_**Disco-clam**: I own nothing. Not even my OCs. At this point, they own me. End of story._

_**Warnings**: ... I... don't remember? :3_

_**Quickquote**: "Don't you think," L said, stabbing at a piece of cake with a fork, "that these victims were quite different from those that Kira regularly chooses? They were only convicted of minor offences. The one charged with drug offences was only reported in a women's magazine; the only time they appeared on television was a daytime talkshow. Don't you think that's strange?"_

_"So… are we ruling out the possibility that Kira might be a little on the gay side?"_

* * *

The broadcast yesterday had left the investigation team in a near perpetual silence, and it was worse than ever now as they waited for Yagami to return from the police station. They were all no doubt thinking the same thing; they had no way around this, no plan, nothing, and they didn't have very long to come up with one. They needed to figure something out fast, or they were at risk of losing at least one of the two most important members of the task force; the investigation team's link to the police force or the head detective himself.

Katherine dropped the butt of a lit cigarette into an almost empty cup in her hand that held the remnants of a cup of coffee from a few hours ago; cold and disgusting, it served a better purpose as an ashtray. She had already gotten the deeds for her property to the investigation team, or rather Watari had retrieved them from Don at a preset location a couple days ago. Even after how well her interrogation had gone, it seemed that she was still under at least minor suspicion on the parts of all the members of the investigation team—maybe not as being Kira, but perhaps as being in it for something else.

In short, none of them really trusted Al or anyone working with him. Given his history and the fact that they were on opposite sides of the law, she couldn't exactly blame them.

As she was reaching around the side of her chair for her bag to find another cigarette (though all the chain smoking didn't seem to outwardly be calming her nerves, she knew she would have been much worse off otherwise), the door of the hotel room opened and the four in the room looked over to see Yagami entering.

"Welcome back, chief," Aizawa said. Yagami bowed his head silently in recognition. Despite the attempt at breaking the silence that had been persisting since Yagami left for the station, it still held for a few seconds even after Yagami took a seat in the arrangement of chairs and sofas at the center of the room.

"It's as you expected, Ryuzaki," he said. "Everyone at the NPA agreed that they want you to appear on TV. No tricks. They haven't done anything to help to this point, and they aren't bringing up any good counter strategies now…. It seems they're all being pulled around by Kira."

L shook his head. "They made the logical choice. The police will never be pushed around by Kira, so they chose to sacrifice me, who taunted him in the beginning, over their chief." He set down his coffee on the table in front of them. "I believe they made the correct decision."

"But then L—Ryuzaki, you might…"

"But… Kira doesn't know anything about the real L," Katherine said. "How would he even decide that Ryuzaki's the real deal?"

"That's true…" Matsuda said thoughtfully.

"That may be, but I'll definitely try my best to convince him if it comes to that," L said. "Otherwise a number of police officers over the world will have to pay the ultimate price. Though regarding how I can prove that I'm L… that will be difficult." He paused here for a moment, either to consider this or to take a bite of the cake sitting on the table in front of him, perhaps both. "Oh well," he concluded finally. "We still have two days, so we have enough time to come up with something effective. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a death wish. Besides… I would rather die by Kira's hand than the hand of someone used by him."

A half-shocked, but nonetheless somber silence echoed through the investigation headquarters, mirroring the one that had been going on all day until Yagami had returned. It was back now, strong as it had been earlier.

"You mean…" Katherine said quietly, as though not to interrupt the reigning silence, "you think there _is_ a second Kira now?" Katherine asked.

L nodded. "After watching all the tapes, the chances seem much higher. Especially this tape." He picked up one of the tapes from the table they were seated around and held it up. "This was made to prove Kira's identity to the employees of Sakura TV. It reached the station a day after it was mailed, then three days later, the first predicted death occurred."

"Predicting deaths? That sounds like Kira to me…" Matsuda said.

"Yeah…" Aizawa agreed, "care to explain what makes you think he isn't Kira? I saw the tapes too and I'm not seeing your logic."

"Don't you think," L said, stabbing at a piece of cake with a fork, "that these victims were quite different from those that Kira regularly chooses? They were only convicted of minor offences. The one charged with drug offences was only reported in a women's magazine; the only time they appeared on television was a daytime talkshow. Don't you think that's strange?"

"So… are we ruling out the possibility that Kira might be a little on the gay side?" Katherine asked, her voice quite serious. She grinned at the glares she received from Aizawa and Yagami. Of course, if Light really was Kira, it wasn't something they couldn't rule out; she had never before in her life met a straight male that looked so utterly tidy all the time. He seemed to be all about the whole high maintenance thing.

"And of course," L continued as though never interrupted, "there were the presenters at Taiyou TV, who never did anything more than criticize Kira—something Kira has never cared about before. Leaving major criminals alive after killing his critics isn't Kira's style. Even more likely, as it is proved Kira's power can control the time of death, this new Kira perhaps killed in advance, chosing minor criminals and critics to avoid clashing with the original Kira's possible victims."

"So… that's why he killed innocent people on TV?" Matsuda said uncertainly. "But… isn't that a little…"

"We definitely can't conclude there's a second Kira based only on that," Aizawa agreed. "It's a possibility, but until there's solid evidence, we really don't know anything."

Yagami turned to L. "Ryuzaki, what do you think the chances are that there's a second Kira?"

"At least seventy percent." A collective wave of shock made its way across the room—it was rare that L was ever that certain of anything. "Everything he's done is very unlike the first Kira," L explained.

"How so?"

"Would the real Kira really use such crappy display effects?" Katherine asked, though uncertainly. "Cardboard backdrops and poorly drawn letters just don't seem like his style."

"And how do you know it was cardboard?" Aizawa asked. Katherine shrugged.

"That was what it looked like to me," she said. "Cardboard, posterboard, something to that extent. I'm not an expert on it. I'm being trained to infiltrate, not send threatening messages."

"The sound was substandard as well," L said, successfully cutting off what was no doubt bound to turn into an argument. "Blurred with double playback and seemingly recorded on the camera's built in microphone. Kira would have gone for quality; it has to do with his juvenile personality. Even more, he killed innocent workers and police officers on live television—he should have realized that this would decrease his public appeal significantly. The real Kira must be angry… the second Kira's actions directly conflict with his, as he would never use scare tactics and terrorism. He's introducing his ideas to the public slowly and coercing them into accepting them before going very far."

"But on the other hand, Kira seems to have a supporter with a more advanced version of his own power," Katherine said. "He might look to use it to his advantage."

"That is also possible," L agreed. "Regardless of Kira's opinions, however, he will still be looking to find the second Kira, either to kill him or to use him. Either situation would be dangerous."

"So these fingerprints might be…"

"Fingerprints?" Yagami turned to address Aizawa, who was looking thoughtfully at a small, sealed plastic bag containing the postage stamp used to send the videos.

"Yeah, the lab found matching prints on the videos and the postage stamp," Aizawa said. "They didn't belong to anyone at Sakura TV."

"And we didn't think there was any way Kira would leave prints," Matsuda added. Aizawa nodded.

"So all it seemed like was either Kira got someone else to send the tapes for him. Either that or the second Kira theory fit to this, too."

"It seems likely the second Kira may have left the fingerprints," L said. "If this second Kira does exist, he seems far less intelligent than the real Kira. L retrieved the small bag from Aizawa and held it up to examine it. "It's unfortunately impossible to use this against anyone until we have a suspect, as it would be impossible to check the fingerprints of everyone in Japan. We will have to catch him first and then compare the prints. Strange, though…" he said, "how small these fingerprints are."

"Little?"

L nodded to Yagami, still examining the prints closely. "Almost like a child's or a small woman's."

Katherine wasn't at all surprised when most of the eyes in the room fell on her from this statement. With a sigh, she held up her gloved hands. "I'd give you my prints for comparison right away if I could," she said, "but that's virtually impossible for a little while."

"But they're just gloves—" Matsuda started.

"_Not_ the gloves," she said, taking one of them off to reveal five bandaged fingers. "It's at least slightly longer term than gloves." Flinching as she did, she pulled the band-aid to the side on her index finger to reveal the burned skin beneath. "Lye flakes and water," she said, sticking the other side of the band-aid back to her finger once they had all seen it. "Al's been having us burn our fingerprints off since the night we first planed the cameras. 'Safety first' is practically his philosophy on life."

Matsuda blinked quite a few times before breaking the silence. "They… come back after it heals?"

She nodded, pulling her glove back on now. "Generally takes about a month for them to come back, only just did it this time about a week ago. I'll gladly supply you all with fingerprints once I have some again. Though on the other hand," she said, picking up the bagged postage stamp when L set it on the table they were gathered around, now looking at it herself, "once you get my prints and see they don't match, I'd just expect you to agree on the fact that I probably got someone else to send the tapes." She tossed the stamp back onto the table. "What do you suppose Kira's going to do about all of this if it is a different person?"

The other three looked to L at this immediately. In some ways, he was just like Kira. To Kira's followers, his will was law. To L's investigators, his word was law. It was no doubt why they were having so much trouble catching each other. One was always a step ahead of the other, stuck in an eternal paradox of evidence and confusion. L would base his actions on what he thought Kira would do, Kira would base his actions on what he thought L would suspect, and L would in turn change his own actions accordingly. The cycle would go on, and the world would keep turning.

"If I were Kira," L said slowly, biting a nail in thought as he stared off towards the opposite wall to him, "I would be trying to find the second Kira before the police did… determine whether or not he agreed with my ideals and gauge his usefulness as an ally, and, regardless of whether or not I would agree to work with him, eliminate him before the police close in." He looked around at the rest of the investigation team. "In other words, we're in a race with Kira to track the second Kira down, which in turn gives us an opportunity to catch the real Kira.

"Yagami-san," he continued, directing his attention at the older man. "If possible, I would like to ask your son to help with the case when he has the time."

After a moment of looking extensively shocked—along with the rest of the investigation team—he replied, "Can I take that to mean he's been cleared of all suspicion?"

"I can't say that, no," L replied, "but I think he has very good reasoning abilities. He could turn out to be an asset in apprehending the second Kira."

Yagami nodded, though was obviously at least slightly disappointed that his son was still under suspicion. Katherine could hardly imagine his reaction to finding out his son really _was_ Kira. "As long as my son agrees, I have no reason to stop him."

"I believe his sense of justice will lead him to agree. However, I would like you all to keep our suspicions of a second Kira secret from him," L said. "I want him to think, at least initially, that we are hunting down the same Kira we have been hunting all along."

"But… how would he even be a help to us then?" Matsuda asked.

"Yeah…" Aizawa agreed, looking at L. "Why even ask for his help, then?"

"Well, it would at least be better to wait until after he's seen all the videos, wouldn't it?" Katherine said uncertainly. "We'd have a second opinion on the theory that way, if he came to the same conclusion."

"Yes, and I believe he will come to the same conclusion after we show him the evidence we've gathered," L agreed. "In the event that he doesn't, we will inform him of our suspicions, and work as a team. We are only keeping him in the dark initially, as I've said."

So L was only using this to gauge Light's reactions to the videos…. There was no doubt that if Light didn't come to the same conclusion, then he was only using it to deter suspicion away from himself. Odds were, he would feel pressured into admitting the option of there being a second Kira. Light, unfortunately, didn't seem stupid, so he would probably be able to use it to his advantage even if he did agree that there might be another person with Kira's powers. The entire case was just ridiculously confusing.

"But… this second Kira theory is just based on the fact that this Kira focused on different types of criminals," Matsuda said, "isn't it?"

"There's more to it than that." L picked up the cup of no doubt cold coffee from the table in front of him. "The Kira we were hunting needed a name and a face to kill. At this point, that was fairly obvious. With this Kira, however, cops that simply showed up at the station were killed on the spot. He also seems confident that he can kill me just by forcing me to appear on television. From this, we can conclude that this Kira can kill knowing only a face—a power the original Kira didn't have."

"Could we have just had our information wrong?" Aizawa asked

"That seems unlikely," Katherine said. "I mean, in every instance that names of criminals were wrong on television, they remained totally unharmed by Kira. His abilities could have changed somehow, but…"

"If Kira's abilities had changed," L said, "then he would have used his new abilities to kill those major criminals he was unable to kill before. If Light-kun deduces that there is a second Kira, then the suspicion against him will be mostly cleared."

"Wh… what do you mean, Ryuzaki?" Yagami asked.

"If I appear on TV in the next few days and I'm killed," L said, "then the number of possible suspects will spread throughout the world. It isn't an opportunity Kira would want to miss—the more suspicion there is spread amongst others, the less there is on him as an individual. I think the second Kira would follow orders from the real Kira, so there may be a way to stop him in that. At the least, the second Kira agrees with the real Kira. I think that if Light-kun is Kira, he won't want to mention the possibility of a second Kira for these reasons."

"So you're saying your suspicion of my son will grow if he doesn't mention the possibility of a second Kira?" Yagami asked, not sounding at all too happy.

"That _is_ a little harsh…" Aizawa agreed.

"No. It will stay at five percent in that case. My suspicions stand no chance of increasing from this, only decreasing. And just in case," L continued, "use your fake names while here from now on. Also, Watari won't be coming here anymore. He will remain at an outside location, as 'another' L who only I know. If Light-kun is able to come here," he added, looking at Yagami, "then please instruct him to do so secretly as soon as he can."

The others were silent, appearing mildly apprehensive, no doubt believing that perhaps L was going a bit too far. Katherine kept her eyes on the floor, thinking on a totally opposite wavelength—he wasn't going nearly far enough. Then again, Light already knew that he was L; having him come here wouldn't be that big of a step. But his opinions on all of this… Light would no doubt suspect that L would expect Kira _not_ to mention the possibility of a second Kira, so there was no doubt that Light would feed him the truth he wanted to hear. L probably knew this and was simply keeping it from the investigation team for the sake of avoiding any further confusion. Of course, given how low his suspicions were already, it was hard to say if he would honestly clear most of his suspicions against Light, or if their paradox of suspicions would only go on even further.

Katherine listened amidst her own confusion as Yagami spoke into his cell phone. "Light, Ryuzaki is saying he would like you to work with us. Come here immediately if you're interested."

* * *

_The word of the day is baidu. _

_And now, I bid thee adieu.  
_


	7. Disaster

_... I hate it when I type up the ENTIRE A/N, then click on a random bookmark at the top of the page and lose the whole thing._

_Which I just did._

_UGH._

_But... yay new chapter?  
_

_I'm only going to reply to a couple of reviews this time, mostly because I'm too tired to type up replies to every single review AGAIN. But I will say to all of my reviewers, thank you so very much for being so epically awesome. I do love you all and appreciate your feedback._

_Now, the couple I specifically want to reply to, **dez nara** and **yvonna**. Again, I appreciate your feedback, but you both pointed out an issue that I wanted to address, since I imagine a lot of others would point it out if I don't address it now. This issue is the fact that Katherine, in this story, isn't as intelligent as she was in the last story. The fact is that, yes, this is indeed true, but it is for a reason, and is **won't last through the entire story**. The reasons?_

_First, Katherine had absolutely no reason to be smart in the original. She started out practically omniscient, which I hated about her when I read through it again. She just plain knew too much. _

_Second, the fact that she's adapting to a new situation-being part of a slightly more formal investigation of Kira than what she was in before-contributes to her appearing less intelligent. She's still learning what's what in working with the task force, what she can get away with and everything. She is still quite intelligent, I can assure you of this; she's just being careful right now. In retrospect, this makes her slightly smarter than she was in the original fic-she has the logic to assess her situation before jumping in and showing her true colors. She's also going to learn as the story goes on-which is a much more natural progression than in the original.  
_

_Third, something is going to have to trigger her proactiveness in this fic, and this will happen very soon. As I developed the characters more, I realized that from the beginning, Katherine wasn't the ringleader-it was Al who was in charge of everything to start with. Since she's only working under him at the moment, she's only taking orders, and hasn't been allowed to show her true potential yet. As the story progresses on (I'm not sure all of you have read the original, so I won't say exactly what will happen), there will be an event that will cause her initiative to develop quite a bit more._

_Basically, Katherine has to recognize that she's going to have to take charge of things herself before she will start to show her full potential. Right now, as much as she protests Al treating her like a kid all the time, she is still more or less just that. She's too dependent on him, and that is what's hindering her._

_I hope that clears up any issues._

_And for reference, in case you don't get it in the context it's used, "banjaxed" basically means "royally screwed" or just generally fucked up beyond all repair. Y'know, FUBAR'd._

_So, this chapter covers a lot of what happens in the prequel story, **Animalistic Tendencies**. Since not many people have bothered reading it and I still need to do more research before I update it again, and it was sort of required for that scene in this chapter. And you also get Katherine's first real conversation with Light, which is similar to the one in the original, because I just couldn't leave that out. It was too amusing. Plus it cheered me up after writing the second scene. So... yeah.  
_

_**Disclaimer:** I no owns! Not my OCs, either. They own me at this point.  
_

_**Warnings: **All the usual.  
_

_**Quote**:  
__With an annoyed sigh, he set his pen down this time before looking up. "What do you think distracting me is going to accomplish?"_

_"Aside from my own entertainment?" He rolled his eyes at this and picked his pen back up. "Well, there is the fact that I'm not too entirely sure that I like you. I thought it would be a good idea to get that across as soon as possible."_

_"I suppose that makes a lot of sense," he said, going back to writing again now. "Especially given that we've hardly said two words to each other since we met."_

_"Just leave the sarcastic remarks to me. Trust me, I'm much better at them."_

* * *

Matsuda and Light were only pinpricks at the front entrance below the hotel, the yellow taxi just a toy car driving off. From the window of the hotel room, Katherine watched the two greet each other briefly, that Shinigami hovering behind Light as it always did, before they headed into the hotel. Things were just getting more and more real now. Kira was coming to work on the investigation team built for the sake of hunting down Kira, and here she was caught up in the middle of it, no experience with formal investigation, nothing more than a criminal herself. As much as she had been told there were no chances that she had a name under the eye of the law, what if that meant nothing? If she somehow had a name, she was just as susceptible to the powers of Kira's death note as anyone else here was, and she was the only one in this room that both had a criminal background and was devoutly against Kira.

Now, more than ever, she _really_ hoped Al knew what he was doing.

Katherine turned her head at the sound of the door opening in time to watch Matsuda and Light entering the room. The Shinigami entered immediately after them through the wall, a hovering gothic clown that no one but her and its human could see, that incessant grin still plastered on its face. The ticket to proving who Kira really was, and no one of real importance could even see it. Frustrating was what it was. Sighing inwardly, Katherine followed the other three over to the door to greet Light. As long as they were working together, she guessed she was going to have to be civil with him.

"Thank you for coming, Yagami-kun."

Light nodded to L. "Not at all, Ryuga. I want to catch Kira just as much as anyone here does."

Katherine refrained from joining in on the Shinigami's snickering. "Call me Ryuzaki here," L told Light.

"And I'm Matsui," Matsuda added.

"Katherine." Her eyes flickered to the Shinigami for a moment.

"I'm Aihara."

"… Asahi."

"Then I guess I'd be Light Asahi?" Light checked, looking between his father and L.

"That will be fine," L said. "I will just call you Light-kun here."

He continued his well-mannered act, asking how many people were on the investigation team; a quick flash of dismay was visible on his face—though probably only visible to someone who would have been looking for it—when L informed him that there was at least one person working on the outside, who would remain there. He was no doubt wondering just how many people there were on the outside, determining how much more work it was going to take him before he would be able to simply kill all of them and cause any evidence against him to disappear.

All the while, the Shinigami hovered behind him, its manic grin remaining in place.

Light followed L—and the rest of the investigation team followed the two of them—to an end table containing stacks upon stacks of paperwork, as well as a tape from the second Kira.

"I would like you to take a look at all of the evidence we have gathered on Kira," L told Light, "and this unreleased tape that was sent to Sakura TV. Please understand that making notes and taking documents from this room is prohibited."

Katherine reassumed her previous position of standing by the window while the others stood behind Light to observe his reactions to the evidence. L took a seat in his preferred chair.

* * *

It was quite some time later that the Kira tape finished playing, and Katherine looked back when she heard L ask Light, "So what do you think, Light-kun? Did you figure anything out?"

Totally unperturbed, Light replied, "I think the person who made these tapes is someone else who can use Kira's power."

He was a good actor, to say the least. If not for the fact that he was so strongly against criminals, he probably would have made a rather helpful addition to Al's little crime family. This was unfortunate, however, as it meant L's suspicion of him would now be lowered to nearly nothing—that is, if L hadn't been lying to them for the sake of keeping Yagami under control. That definitely seemed like something L would do. He was stubborn, and there was no way he would give up on his lead suspect that easily.

Watching the monitors in a house only a few miles away from the very hotel L and the investigation team were in, Don frowned. The fact that he was this familiar with L's personality already bothered him slightly. Perhaps it was just because he hadn't been getting enough sleep lately. He took a sip of the bottle of Guinness Draught clutched in his left hand.

Most of the monitors were out, but the bugs weren't. It was hard to see much of anything in the hotel room. There was still one camera in place above the window Katherine was standing by, one above the door, one concealed inside a vase… most of the rest had been ripped away at some point, however. There wasn't any point in worrying about it since they were getting regular status reports from Katherine now, but Al insisted they needed to keep an eye on things for themselves as well. He was honestly starting to see why she complained so much about Al treating her like a kid.

A pack of cigarettes landed on the sofa next to Don quite suddenly, though this strange phenomenon was explained when Al spoke up from the doorway. "Back. I miss anything interesting?"

"Jus' Kira showin' up," Don said.

"The Yagami kid?" Al leaned back against the doorframe, watching one of the monitors that was still working. "We still don't _know_ he's Kira, it's just a fairly safe assumption at this point. Might be a good idea to stop worryin' about him for now and try to get the upper hand on the second Kira. In case any of us are ever spotted."

"Good point," Don said, pulling a cigarette from the pack he'd just been tossed. "Though I highly doubt we will be. Who'd recognize us, anyway?"

"Well…"

Raising an eyebrow, Don looked back at Al. "I'm not entirely sure I like that tone. Did Pat get himself seen or something?"

"Don't be ridiculous, no one knows what you two would even look like," Al said. "Me, on the other hand…" He gave a nervous laugh. "I wouldn't be surprised if I saw my own face on the news channels within the next couple of days." Don shook his head. "Yeah. I'm the only one of us who they can put a face to at this point, after the past few years. They might not've managed to get any pictures, but there're plenty of police sketches at this point. Good ones, at that."

"Yeah, but sketches aren't… how do y'_know_ someone spotted you?"

He scoffed. "They pointed and took pictures. I don't know how the quality turned out on them, but if any of them were good enough, then I might—"

"Don't say that—"

"Well, someone has to say it," Al said loudly, cutting Don's sentence short. "I might not be around for much longer. That's just a truth we're going to have to accept. And even if the second Kira manages to miss every news report my photograph is on, what is there to say that L never dug up my real name? If that gets put on the air, I'm totally banjaxed."

"Yeah, but…"

"We all knew we were taking a risk when we got into this," Al said. "Particularly me."

"Which was precisely why I was against the idea from the beginning," Don said. "Why _did_ you agree to it? You have a lot more going against you than the rest of us do, you were bound to get sighted eventually, especially given how against staying out of the public eye you seem to be."

With a laugh, Al shook his head. "I suppose I'll have to at least tell you before Kira gets me, yeah?" Don's brow furrowed. "Have yeh noticed any strange parallels between Kira's murders and what went on in Ireland?"

Don puzzled over this for a moment. The only real similarity was the utter absurdity of it all. In Ireland, a series of random people all over the country didn't just suddenly decide to write cryptic messages before getting killed in animal attacks. No, _that_ had been foul play at work, though what sort of foul play, Don had never found out. All he knew to this date was that the killer had been looking for revenge on Al for something Al hadn't even done, and had succeeded in his quest: framing Al with the murders and using his own methods of killing to dispose of himself as the final victim. Al had never discovered _exactly_ what those methods were.

Similarly, hundreds of criminals all over the world didn't just drop dead of heart attacks without some sort of foul play being involved. But even then… shaking his head, Don looked at Al. "D'ya think it's connected or somethin'? I mean, I can see… the fact that neither case made any sense whatsoever to general logic, but the methods and motives are totally different, and since you don't know _how_ Sean actually killed, then there's really no telling."

He remained quiet for a moment, eyes set in the direction of the living room on the other side of the door, but Al spoke up after a moment. "I was never… _entirely_ truthful about how much I know." Don raised an eyebrow. "Sean was perfectly happy to give up his secret before he killed himself, and tell me a fair bit about his weapon before leaving it in my hands. I got rid of it as soon as I possibly could. 'S far as I know, it's not even on this world anymore."

"What exactly does that mean?" Don asked slowly. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know, but the curiosity was too much to just ignore—and if this was going to help with the Kira case, he would have to know. He was probably going to be in charge of the whole operation if Al was killed.

"It means," Al said, "that Sean's weapon wasn't of this world to begin with. I suspect Kira's isn't, either." Al paused for a long moment. As Don had just opened his mouth to ask, Al continued. "He called it a 'death note.'"

"A… death note," Don repeated uncertainly.

Al laughed. "That was my reaction when he was waving around a black notebook with the words 'Death Note' written across the front of it. I can assure you," he said, "that I haven't gone mad. This death note of his, it was apparently given to him by a Shinigami—which, ironically, translates from Japanese to 'God of Death'. This Shinigami was curious about what a human might do with a death note, more or less, and I think the fact that Sean was… a bit _mad_ was exactly why he was the one given the death note. The Shinigami found it interesting, all in all. Naturally, while he was telling me everything, I thought he was totally delusional. _Then_ he assured me he could prove it if I'd just take the notebook from him, so I did. Sure as bloody hell put me in my place."

"For someone who can assure me he isn't mad," Don said, eyebrows raised, "you definitely sound pretty well off your rocker."

"Believe me, I'm painfully aware of that," Al said. "But right now, this is all we have, you should hope that I'm _not_ mad. I know I'm not. I know I touched that notebook, and I know that as soon as I did, a monster like nothing I could have ever imagined in my worst nightmares was hovering behind Sean. Touching the notebook allows humans to see the Shinigami bound to it. Picking up a notebook with no owner creates a bond between that human and the Shinigami that owned the notebook. I thought I'd gone totally mad, and even now it sounds like the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of, but…" He shook his head. "I know what I saw, and I know it was real."

"And Kira?" Don asked.

Al nodded. "Sean told me," he said, "that he specifically wrote the causes of death under the names of the victims—that's how you use a death note, just by writing a name with the face of the individual in mind. Had he not written the causes and or the details… had he _just_ written the names... they'd have died of heart attacks." He finally looked back in the room at Don. "_Heart attacks_. It's already been proven that Kira _needs_ a name and a face to kill."

It was starting to sound a little less like nonsense babbled by a madman now, but it still needed a little work before it could be acceptable. But even so… it was impossible for Don to _not_ believe it all. Don had known Al for the past ten years, and never in his life had Don met someone _less_ likely to snap and get lost in a world of delusion than Al. Al was very possibly the most level-headed person Don had ever met, dead serious even when he was joking, incapable of being fazed by anything. His ability to keep calm and see reality through anything may as well have been a superhuman ability. It was a huge part of what made him so successful in his field of work. By being as alert as he was, he was impossible to fool and capable of fooling anyone.

Knowing all this, Don believed every word that Al was saying, every word of apparent nonsense that most people would have been locked up in an asylum for even thinking. It was obvious that Al believed himself, and Al was the type of person who wouldn't believe anything without solid evidence, a total skeptic to the bitter end. But he _believed_ this. If Al believed something this strongly, then there was hardly a doubt that it was true.

"What about the second Kira?" Don asked. "He doesn't seem to need a name to kill."

"Which only further supports the theory of death note users," Al said with a sigh. "A human with a death note can make a deal with the Shinigami bound to the notebook that allows them to see the names of any human. The cost of the deal is half of the death note user's life. I imagine an avid Kira supporter got their hands on a notebook and agreed to the deal for the sake of helping Kira with the criminals he isn't able to kill. The type of person willing to give their life for Kira, wouldn't think anything of giving up half of their life."

"Did Sean…?" Al nodded. "So I take it that's how he had our real names."

"Making a little more sense now?"

Don nodded. "A bit. Not to say I don't believe it," he added. "It's just… who'd have thought, with all this 'God of the New World' ballsch floatin' around, that there actually are _gods_ involved? Actually…" he said slowly, "how likely is it that the 'second Kira' might be a Shinigami?"

"If the one I met is any indicator, then not very bloody likely," Al said with a laugh. "I highly doubt they could give a damn about the state of the human world. As long as there're people for them to kill around, they're fine. They're not bothered about criminals here."

"Yeah, but you have only met _one_, and I guess there are more?" Al nodded. "What's there to say that they're not like humans? Different personalities, different principles and whatnot."

Al shrugged. "I suppose it's possible," he said slowly, "but it still seems more like something a human would do, doesn't it? If there was a Shinigami in support of Kira, then it could have just started killing off criminals with him straight away."

"Yeah, good point…" Don said. "So some bloke probably just picked one up recently and decided to use it to Kira's advantage."

"Right."

This was exactly why it was going to be hell if Al died, not just with the Kira case, but with _everything_. He was the mastermind behind everything they did, and with good reason. Maybe he wasn't as smart as L, and maybe the fact that he had escaped being captured by L back in Ireland was due in part to pure luck, but regardless, Al was probably one of the most intelligent criminals the world over. In short, they needed him, all three of them did. There was no way around that. Without him, they were nothing. He had become like a father to all three of them over the years, the father none of them had ever really had. Accepting the fact that he might possibly be gone forever soon was just… it was just impossible to comprehend.

* * *

Katherine yawned, more out of boredom than actually exhaustion, as she sat in one of the chairs in the hotel room, digging through her messenger bag. It had been L's idea that they send in a fake broadcast to a news station claiming to be Kira, in response to the second Kira to see if they would reply, no doubt part of his reasoning for asking Light to come work with them. Katherine had been charged with the task of recording the script that she was currently waiting for Light to finish writing. With the rest of the taskforce off making other arrangements—Matsuda in charge of video, Aizawa in charge of developing voice distortion, and Yagami in charge of getting a station to agree to allowing them ten minutes of air-time for the video tonight—there wasn't much of anything to do except wait.

With an annoyed sigh, she looked up at Light. "Aren't you done yet?"

He paused writing and looked up. "It's been two minutes."

"_I_ could have finished it in two minutes," she grumbled.

"_You're_ not the person writing it," Light replied. "I'd rather take my time so it doesn't come out sounding like, as you put it earlier, 'complete crap.'"

"Someone's in a crabby mood," Katherine said earlier—though, in his defense, she had been spending the better part of the past few minutes annoying him. She commenced rummaging through her bag again. "Would a soda help?"

"I doubt it."

"Bottle of water, maybe?"

"Probably not…"

"Potato chips?"

Pausing again, he glared up at her. "Do you have an entire convenient store in there or something?"

"Maybe." She raised an eyebrow. "What's it to you?"

Light shook his head and commenced attempting to ignore her again. It looked like it was back to boredom until she could think of something else interesting to do. She looked around the room and sighed. With everyone else off in other rooms and L only back and forth between rooms, the only entertaining thing there was to do was to torment Light.

"Chocolate bar?"

With an annoyed sigh, he set his pen down this time before looking up. "What do you think distracting me is going to accomplish?"

"Aside from my own entertainment?" He rolled his eyes at this and picked his pen back up. "Well, there is the fact that I'm not too entirely sure that I like you. I thought it would be a good idea to get that across as soon as possible."

"I suppose that makes a lot of sense," he said, going back to writing again now. "Especially given that we've hardly said two words to each other since we met."

"Just leave the sarcastic remarks to me. Trust me, I'm much better at them."

She was rather glad that he hadn't mentioned the few words she _had_ said to him at the college—in particular the few words about Shinigami. The fact that the few cameras and bugs left in the hotel room were still working, and the fact that she wouldn't put it past Al to have Pat continue putting them up just to keep track of _her_, made it hard for her to say half of the things she wanted to say right now. For one, she was quite curious about the Shinigami in the room with them right now, and it seemed like it would have been a better conversational partner than Light was being at the moment. Its general creepiness aside, the sarcastic comments it had been making since Light got here were rather amusing, all in all.

She supposed there was _something_ she could do about it.

"The fact that I suspect you're Kira isn't doing much for you, either," she said casually—his pen stopped moving immediately. "Given how I work with criminals and all."

Light looked up sharply. "And you were allowed on the investigation team?" he said, disbelief and slight disgust in his tone. "Why?"

"I guess they just like me. Probably helps that my… boss, for lack of a better word, just so happens to be the only criminal L never managed to catch. We know who he is now, but he still isn't entirely sure of who we are, so we kind of have blackmail on him." She smiled. "Don't bother remembering. We're careful. You won't ever find out who any of us really are."

"I'm not interested, anyway," he said, again sounding annoyed. "I'm not Kira. I'm just as intent on catching him as anyone else here is. I'm just doing it based on morals instead of for my own sake."

Shaking her head, she went back to looking through her bag. "I'm sure you are, Kira-face." Katherine grinned slightly at the annoyed sigh she heard after this, even though she wasn't sure if it was as much in response to her statement as it was to the cackling his Shinigami was doing. Either way, at least she had found something slightly more entertaining to do than rummage through her bag.

* * *

_For reference, Sean is actually Don's brother, dunno if I've mentioned that before anywhere in this story. His backstory is in **Animalistic Tendencies**. He was a pretty good kid until he snapped, honest. I miss Sean and his psychotically delusional self. I've really gotta get back to writing that fic again. Not many people read it much, but I loved working on it so much. Sean was such a fun antagonist to write.  
_

_Soooo that's this fic. Your random word of the day is going to be a random phrase instead: "Stake a shick." Similar to shaking a stick, only slightly more frantic. You see, you shake a stick at large numbers, but you stake a shick at even LARGER numbers. For instance, while your energy burst from red bull might not be anything to shake a stick at, Powerthirst gives you more energy than you can **stake a shick** at. See how that works? Yeah, thought so._

_If you don't know what Powerthirst is, I suggest looking it up.  
_

_This random phrase is brought to you by the many mispeaks of Comma and her friends and family that refuse to let her live them down!_

_And now, I bid thee adieu. I think I might attempt some sleep now.  
_


	8. Liar

_OOOH NEW CHAPTER SHINEY :D_

_Okay, sorry. Couldn't resist._

_Aaaaanyway, yeah. This was a pretty hard chapter to write, the last scene was just... aaaah. I may have to play guitar for a bit to cheer myself up after that._

_I still enjoyed writing it, though, all in all. Had Aizawa and Katherine's first minor argument. Yay firsts! x3 I think that's been one of my favorite parts of rewriting so far. Bringing back all the classic trademarks._

_So, onto review replies?_

_Spar: Yay indeed._

_yvonna: Ah, that'll definitely be back, no worries xD_

_L Lawliet 4ever: Just call me Comma xP Bloodstained was just my original penname on the site, I wanted to hang onto it and "Comma" was already in use, so it worked out. Heh, the triumphant return of Kira-face! I was just **waiting** for an opportunity to use that again. And don't worry, THOSE chapters will definitely be in the rewrite. And probably with more detail. And thank you for the compliments! It's nice to know that my obsessive compulsiveness over character development is appreciated by someone xD_

_Apathetical: I'd totally try it. But that's just me, the girl who once used the word "fummin" in an English essay. Looong story. xP I've noticed that in the... er, very few fanfics I've read as well. I'm more of a writer than a reader a lot of the time when it comes to fanfics, but I have seen that before. But I mean, after getting over the initial shock of seeing Ryuk, he just shouldn't seem that creepy. Also, Katherine already had some idea of what he was when she first saw him, due to being a Death Note owner herself. Al definitely feels guilt for what happened in Ireland. I've got plans to reveal a lot of this in later chapters, though, so I'm not getting into too much of it._

_Hokay, story stuff, and then story. I think we all know the drill by now, right?_

_**Disclaimobob**: I don't own anything. At all. Not even myself. I'm legal property of my obsessions. Yep._

_**Warnings**: You know all the usual? Yeah, those._

_**Quick-quote**:_  
_"Are you taking this seriously at all?" Aizawa asked, sounding mildly annoyed._

_"Yes," she said defensively. "I'd just rather joke occasionally so I don't turn into… well, you. I'd prefer not to be an over-serious afro-cop, thanks." He rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair._

* * *

"Finished."

Katherine jerked the paper out of Light's hands. "About time."

"Hey—!"

"You said you were done," she said absently, skimming through the paragraphs. A grin came to her face. "Well, _that's_ awfully pleasant."

"What is?"

"'It's fine with me if you kill L?'" She laughed and handed the paper back. "Well, I suppose if you want everyone to think you're Kira, then you couldn't have done a better job."

Surprisingly, Light laughed as well. She raised an eyebrow. "He told me to think like Kira, I was just following instructions," Light said. "I figured Kira wouldn't want his reputation tarnished, but he'd still want L dead. It's only a joke," he added. "I was planning on taking it out."

Katherine grinned. "Don't take it out yet, then. Could be interesting. Besides, I'm not proofreading anyway, I'm only in charge of acting. Woo-hoo. I don't get to do much of _anything_." She sighed, sinking back into her chair. "I'll just go out on my own and get information without the team if I have to. I'm just not going to be doing any good otherwise. Besides which, I hate being stuck inside."

Everyone else had returned to the main room soon, having finished the tasks assigned to them by L. L had taken the script from Light and was now scanning over it himself, and Katherine watched in amusement as his eyes widened when they passed over one particular line. She managed to avoid grinning at this, but it wasn't an easy task—the look of confusion on his face was just too adorable. Good at acting or not, holding back amusement had never been one of her strong points.

"Is it good enough?" Light asked L as the detective glanced over at him from the paper. "I wrote it as if I were Kira."

"It is," he replied uncertainly, looking back down at the paper for a moment. "But… if you don't remove the 'You can still kill L' part…" L looked over at Light and finished, "then I'll die."

Katherine just barely managed to cover her laugh with a cough.

"Well, looking at it from Kira's point of view, it seemed like he would definitely want L dead in this situation," Light replied amiably. L blinked at him a few times, still looking mildly perplexed. "It was just a joke, you can fix it up as you see fit."

"Okay."

* * *

The investigation team later sat in wait in the hotel room, gathered around a television turned to the news station that would be broadcasting their message to the second Kira on that evening. Light had gone home by this point; he wasn't subject to remaining at headquarters all night as the rest of the members of the investigation team were, given his prior commitment to college and the fact that his involvement in the investigation was—and would remain—a secret to his mother and sister. However, today's greatest amount of work was done, and all that was left was to wait.

"If this works, then the second Kira will most likely wish to meet with the first Kira," L was saying—Katherine glanced up from her cup of lukewarm coffee at this. It was the first anyone had spoken for quite some time; glancing at her watch told her that it had been precisely eleven minutes since she had last attempted—and failed—to start a conversation to wear down some of the tension. "Judging by his behavior so far, he won't be very careful about it, either, and will probably give us a major clue as to where to find him."

"How likely _is_ it that it will work?" Matsuda asked.

"Ninety percent."

"That high?" Katherine said, surprised. "There's always the chance that the second Kira might use some sort of code that only people with their powers would understand."

"If that's the case," L said, "then seventy-five at the least. It's impossible to know whether or not they might have this kind of code, but it is plausible. Any brief mention the second Kira makes of it could throw us off as much as it could help us."

Matsuda blinked back and forth between them. "So… somewhere between seventy-five and ninety?"

"Either way, those are good chances compared to what we've been going by," Yagami said. "One hundred would be better, but it's impossible to be quite that sure of anything in this case."

"Except confusion," Katherine said with a sigh, looking down at her watch. "Six forty-five. Only fifteen minutes until my first televised acting gig." She shifted sideways in her chair and took a sip of her coffee. With a grimace, she set it down on the table they were seated around—lukewarm coffee just wasn't going to cut it. "I always figured my first appearance on television would be in the news," she continued wonderingly, "but not in this kind of situation."

"Are you taking this seriously at all?" Aizawa asked, sounding mildly annoyed.

"Yes," she said defensively. "I'd just rather joke occasionally so I don't turn into… well, you. I'd prefer not to be an over-serious afro-cop, thanks." He rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair. The silence rang out for another few minutes. Matsuda was the next to break it.

"What's going to happen if Kira sends in his own tape next?" he asked. "As a response to our video."

More silence followed this, as everyone looked at L expectantly—he seemed to be more interested in dropping sugar cubes into his coffee than listening to them, however. The question hanging in the air around them, Katherine decided to take a stab at it.

"Well…" she said slowly, "the most he could do at this point is just send in another video. As far as we _know_, it's logical enough to assume that he doesn't know who any of us are, or we'd already be dead. He could send in his own tape correcting us and using his ability to kill to prove who he is—it doesn't seem like Kira's style, no, but it would be the only way he could prove his identity—but all that would accomplish would be proving that we're frauds. We'd still be able to use his videos, and any videos the second Kira sends in, to track them down. Kira probably knows this, so it's doubtful he'll send in his own video. It would be too much of a risk on his identity." Staring up at the ceiling, she continued, "So overall… it wouldn't be that big of a deal."

Matsuda glanced at his watch. "Five minutes left."

The room grew quiet again.

* * *

The quiet carried on into the night, disturbed only by the occasional yawn from Katherine or the sound of cubes of sugar being dropped into cups of tea or coffee from across the room. The others had taken tonight to rest. Katherine was looking through names of Kira's latest victims via laptop, L going over evidence against the second Kira. Yagami had been right earlier—nothing was definite in this case except for uncertainty. Looking at a list of names, staring at fingerprints and tapes—none of this wouldn't give them the answers they were looking for. Everything was just a piece of an incredibly complex puzzle, a puzzle that seemed to grow every time a piece was set in place.

Katherine was cut off from her musings mid-yawn as a large, black L appeared on the screen of the laptop. She blinked at it before finishing her yawn. The computer spoke in the distorted, robotic sort of voice that one might expect a computer to speak in.

"_Ryuzaki._"

Katherine glanced back at L to see him looking up at the computer. She moved from her seat to allow L access to the computer, but still stood by. It was doubtful that the second Kira had responded already—he would have had to have walked into Sakura TV and given them the tape in order for it to have gone through that quickly—but it was still probably something important.

"Yes, Watari?" L replied to voice, assuming his odd sitting position in the chair Katherine had previously been occupying.

"_We may have run into a problem_," Watari said, voice still clouded with robotic distortion.

"Does this have to do with the second Kira?"

"_No, not so much. It deals with our… ally, McManerberry._" Katherine's brow furrowed. "_Apparently someone with the media recognized him… and managed to get a decent photograph._"

"_What_?" Katherine said loudly, her voice a mix of disbelief and anger.

There was silence for a moment, before Watari replied, "_It apparently happened earlier today,_" Watari continued. "_There's a chance that your friends may not know themselves._"

"Oh, I'd be willing to bet they know…" Katherine's hand came to her forehead, her other clenched into a shaking fist. "The idiot went out undisguised, didn't he? We keep telling him he can't do that, he _knows_ he can't—dammit…" She snatched her bag up from the floor next to the chair and dug through it for her cell phone and a pack of cigarettes, before dropping it on the floor and stomping off into the next room in the suite.

The anger she felt right now, the downright fury, it was like nothing she had ever felt. Worse than when Al had left without giving her any real reason back in Ireland, worse than when that godforsaken orphanage had tried to ship her away to another country so she couldn't be with her friends, worse than when Al still refused to tell her anything when he came back. This was boiling and seething over the edge—her hand was shaking so badly when she tried to light her cigarette that she came close to becoming sans one eyebrow, possibly one eye as well. Shoving the lighter back into her pocket and slamming the pack of cigarettes onto the table, she flipped her cell phone open and called the first contact of the three listed, then held the phone to her ear.

Oddly, it was Don who answered Al's phone.

"Little late, what's going on?"

"Funny, I called to ask the same damn _thing_," she replied venomously. "When were the three of yeh plannin' on telling me that Al's been seen? By a _journalist_ with a _camera_? Hmm?"

"Er… hold please." There was a quiet _whoosh_ of air, more than likely Don holding the phone away from him, as he shouted, "Oi, Al, this's your problem, not mine!"

Al rolled off the sofa in response to the yell, having fallen asleep there sometime after midnight watching the news and the broadcast from the so-called "real" Kira. Grumbling, he picked himself up from the floor and shambled over to the doorway, where he found a cell phone being handed to him and Don saying, "I think Kat _might_ have found out." That sprung him awake pretty quickly. "You can keep an eye on the monitors now, I'm grabbing a beer and passing out for the night."

"Er… yeah, sure, sure." Al pushed past Don into the monitoring room and held the phone to his ear—_this_ was going to be fun.

"Look, I _was_ going to let you know—"

"Oh, and _when_, might I ask, _were_ you planning to? I had to find out from a robotic computer voice! You…" She sighed. "Why didn't you call as soon as it happened?" she asked quietly. "Why can't you just ever tell me the _truth_? You always have to wait until the last minute, and you know that it's just bound to make me mad when I find out things like this from someone else, but you _always_ do it."

Running a hand back through his hair, he paced in front of the monitors set against the wall. Why didn't he? That was a question he had never really come up with one collective answer to. When he left in Ireland, it was because he was sure she would convince him to stay, which would have resulted in all of their deaths. Not telling her everything about what had happened, and now not telling her about being recognized here.

"I just…" he sighed—for someone with a job that so strongly involved communication with other people, it surprised him how horrible he was at these kinds of conversations. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"Well, you've failed pretty well at _that_ already," she said. "Do you not _trust_ me with the truth or something? No," she cut herself off immediately. "No, with as much time as you've spent lying, I doubt you even know _how_ to tell the truth anymore."

"I'm telling you the truth," he said, still managing to keep his voice mostly calm, still pacing. "I'm just trying to protect you."

"It's not me that needs protecting right now, Al. It hasn't been since we came to Japan. I'm the safest of the four of us in this situation, I _don't have a name_. You, on the other hand, have a name, and you're also accused of mass murder."

Katherine waited for a response, pacing across the room she was in without really looking at it. Lighting another cigarette with what was left of the first before putting that one out on the pack sitting on an end table, she just waited for some sort of response, some sort of explanation. The anger was easing off a bit—maybe he had only been trying to keep her from being hurt, even if the actual results didn't reflect on his intentions.

He finally spoke again, probably when he realized Katherine wasn't going to say anything else until he did. "You three don't understand how important you are to me," he said quietly. "In this sort of business, friends and family… they're both the best and the worst thing a person can have. You lot have kept me sane through it all, but I… I guess there's such a thing as caring too much, and I've gotten to that point. I know I needed to be protected more than the three of you, but I… I just didn't care. I was too busy trying to make sure none of you got yourselves in any trouble."

Silence was all that replied to him—he was halfway expecting to hear a dial tone within a minute, suspicious that she had hung up, but it never came. With a sigh, he said, "I know you're still there. Just say _something_—" He heard what sounded like a muffled sob through the silence, and a rather unpleasant creaking sound. Blinking, he worked it out in his mind—she probably had her hands over the mouthpiece of her cell phone and was close to crushing it. "Kat, calm down—"

"Y—y-you don't get it, d-do you?" she asked suddenly, trying and failing to hold her voice steady. "All this, you, you, you—you c-care about _us_ more than we know, _y-you_ just want to keep us s-safe—wh-what about us? We _n-need_ you!" She sniffed loudly. "I need you… I _am_ just a kid, I need someone to keep me in line, you can't—give me your name."

Brow furrowed, Al stopped pacing immediately. That was… just a little odd, a little too coincidental. "Why do you need my name?" he asked suspiciously.

"Is now _really_ the time to be worrying about your identity? Just give me your name—"

"Kat, be reasonable. Why would _any_ criminal be worried about giving their name to someone in this situation?"

Katherine was silent for a long moment, probably reflecting over this, or building up to an outrage over the question. Her next question, however, proved contrary to Al's suspicion.

"How much do you know about Kira?" she asked quietly. "If you know how he kills, tell me now. Otherwise, I can't tell you anything."

Al sat down on the sofa in front of the monitors, and stared at the one left functioning in the room Katherine was in. Her free arm was at her side, fist clenched, as she stood in the middle of the room as still as a statue. "Have you known about death notes for this entire time?"

"There was a reason I thought coming to Japan would be a good idea," she said quietly. "I… might be able to stop Kira. I just need your name, Al. He won't be able to kill you if you give me your name."

"You can't prevent a person's death if a death note's involved, you should know that if you know anything about the—"

"No, you're the one who doesn't know anything. My—the one I picked up, it's… it's different. I can use it to save people, but I can't do anything if you die." She swallowed. "I just need your name, and then it's all over. You won't have to worry about Kira. _None_ of you will, I just need _names_."

"Yeah, and this comes at no price?"

Another moment of silence, followed by a quiet, "No."

Al laughed. "You've never been very good at lying."

Katherine hung her head; that was definitely true. Acting was fine, but flat out lying, especially to people she honestly cared about—few though they were—she had just never been very good at it. The truth… if she told him the truth, she knew he would instantly be against the idea, and no amount of argument or excuses would make him any more likely to agree. Nevertheless, with a sigh, she said quietly, "It'll just cost me a year."

"A year."

"Of my life. Per person. I… it was the King of Shinigami, it was his death note. He'd sent an underling out on an errand with it, it got dropped, I found it in the front garden of the house in Trim one morning. That Shinigami was apparently killed for losing it, since another one had to come tell me the rules and offer me the chance to get rid of it."

In the disapproving air of the silence that followed this, Katherine could just see Al shaking his head in disbelief that she had even bothered suggesting such a thing.

"I'm not going to bother asking why you kept it," he said finally. "I doubt it was with anything but good intentions. But I am curious," he said slowly, "about how many times you've used it already."

Katherine flinched. "Well…" she said, "on one person awhile back, just to test it… a-and on the investigation team here, after Ukita was killed." She gulped. "So… that makes five people total, since I couldn't use it on L or Watari, their names are guarded too well."

"And will hopefully remain guarded too well," Al said. He sighed. "That's five years off of your life. You think I'd agree to another three—or even _one_, for that matter? What if that's all you have left?"

"I'm only eighteen, I—"

"Age doesn't mean anything, you're still only a human, demonic notebooks aside. You don't know how long you have left to live, no one does. If you _do_ only have one year left, or even if you have a hundred more left, I'd prefer you didn't waste it." Katherine started to protest—Al must have sensed it, as he continued, "And _don't_ bother trying to argue that it wouldn't be a waste. I'm a lost cause at this point. I'm recognized around the world as a psychopathic serial murderer, and there's absolutely nothing that can prove otherwise at this point, particularly not with the real murderer dead.

"You might not think so now," he continued, a bit more quietly, "but there's a chance this is for the better, for all of us. You three still have something of a chance at normal lives after this. I never will."

"Al…"

"Let's just not discuss this anymore," Al said. "It's after midnight, you probably need to get some sleep, anyway."

"Y… yeah, probably." It was impossible to sum up all the things Katherine still wanted to say, all the arguments that she still had left in her mind that she wished would work but knew wouldn't. Everything, swirling around in her mind, just stayed there, held back by two totally unrelated words: "Night, then."

She hung up before Al could say another word and took a seat at the table she had set her cigarettes on earlier. Putting her face in her hands, she sighed. Al didn't _want_ to live the life of a wanted murderer—who would? No amount of protest on her part would change that. This was just something she would have to accept; and this feeling, as though she had been hit head on by an HGV—she was just going to have to learn to live with that.

* * *

_Sad day :( I hate writing the emotional parts. I loves my OCs too much._

_Soooo, return of afro-cop, anyone? I see many future disagreements between these two. Not because I'm psychic, but because this **is** my second time around writing this story._

_The word of the day is cornetto! Don't ask me what it means, I just got it from an MSN conversation, one of my favorite ways to get new words-of-the-day! :D_

_And on that bombshell, I bid thee adieu!  
_


	9. Confirmation

_Is it? OMG IT IS! NEW CHAPTER!_

_Well, let's face it, it was bound to happen eventually. I missed this fic so much. I need to stop going into writing blocks. Especially what with NaNoWriMo coming up. Aaaaah, national novel writing month. How epically I failed at it last year due to stupid real-life problems. Hopefully none of those will pop up this November._

_So, this chapter, this chapter. I actually spent the past few months working on it on and off, and I wrote the last half of it tonight on a sudden burst of inspiration. I blame beta-reading making me feel guilty about not writing.. -looks accusingly at Sparanda and **Brand New Page**-_

_-whistles innocently to hide the fact that she's whoring other people's fics-_

_So, onto other things! Like **this chapter**. Geez, stop getting me off track. So basically, this chapter covers the end of chapter 26 and beginning of 27 in the manga, don't ask me about episodes since I'm using manga as my reference. -huggles Death Note manga complete box set- That's the first half of the chapter, to say the least. The rest of it is original and stuffs._

_I think I'm going to have to skip out on replying to reviews this time... please don't kill me. It's four o'clock in the morning and I already feel like passing out, and I still have to read over this for typos one more time before actually going to sleep. So... yeah. I'm reallyreally sorry. :(_

_Story stuff, then._

_**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything. As I have said on various occasions, my OCs own me, so no, they don't even count as things I own. They'd probably sue me somehow if I did say I owned them. Don't ask me how; they'd find a way._

_**Warnings**: Umm... yeah._

_**Quote**:__  
"Shinigami… are we supposed to accept the existence of such a thing…?"_

_"Sh… shinigami?" Matsuda said. "No way…"_

_Katherine glanced between Light and the shinigami in the room with them at that precise moment, before saying, "Shinigami… Death God? Maybe it's just a way of referring to their powers—given all this 'God of the New World' talk about Kira, you know? I doubt shinigami could actually exist, don't you, Light?"_

_The shinigami that just so happened to be hovering over Light's shoulder cackled._

* * *

It was abnormal, Katherine thought, that it had been two days since the media had learned of the presence of Alvin McManerberry in Japan, and there was no information on the subject to be found online. This wasn't at all what she had been told to research at the current time. Relaxing in a chair in the newest headquarters of the Kira-catching taskforce—or, simply enough, the newest hotel suite—the laptop set on her lap displayed an internet browser with various tabs open to local and national news websites, all of which yielded zero results when the name "Alvin McManerberry" was typed into their search bar.

It was definitely rather curious.

As she typed in the name on the final site and clicked the search button, the screen blanked out quite suddenly—Katherine nearly went into a panic, until a familiar letter appeared on the screen and the computer yelled at her in a robotic voice.

"_Ryuzaki! We've received a reply from the second Kira!_"

This statement alone, was more than enough to distract the investigation team from their work—or lack thereof. Most of their recent "work" had consisted of the usual going over documents and previous evidence and coming up with the same dead ends they had been coming up with since the beginning of the investigation, if not a new dead end or two occasionally. What they had truly been doing was passing time as they waited for this precise moment.

Only two days since their fake video had been aired and the second Kira had given them the exact reaction they had expected: a response tape. It was impossible to tell yet, of course, whether it was _exactly_ the response they had expected, but the simple fact that a video had been sent, apparently by the very person they were trying to get a reaction out of, was enough to send a wave of excitement through the room.

On the part of Light, it may have been a slightly different story. Looking at him, it was easy to tell he was confused, not by the news, but by the harbinger _of_ the news; Katherine noted that he was staring at the Old English _L_ depicted on the laptop screen with quite the look of puzzlement. This wouldn't be anything that the rest of the investigation team would make a fuss over, of course; it would be enough to confuse anyone in his situation a little.

Everyone sprung from their current seats to gather around the laptop, which Katherine had discreetly set upon a table next to her own chair so as not to be become the gathering point herself. The voice continued, "_Judging by the envelope, tape, how it was sealed, handwriting, and visual quality, the chances it's from the same person are quite high. The materials are on their way to you now, but I will send you a copy of what's on the tape now._"

The white, L-clad laptop screen was immediately replaced by the second Kira's hazy trademark backdrop. The amateurishly distorted voice rang out to the investigation team next.

"_Thank you for your response, Kira-san. I will do exactly as you say._"

The upbeat air that seemed to sweep across the room was almost enough to knock a person off their feet—the only center of uncertainty still there centered around Light, who, with his brow furrowed, seemed to be trying to work out something very complicated. The voice of the second Kira carried on.

"_I wish to meet you, Kira-san. I don't think you have the eyes, but there is no need to worry—I won't kill you_."

The look of horror on Light's face for that split second was absolutely priceless—equally as priceless as the look of puzzlement on L's.

"The 'eyes'? What does that mean…?" Aizawa asked quietly.

"_Please think of a way we can meet without alerting the police. We can confirm each other when we meet by showing our shinigami._"

The horror that swept through the room at these words was quite literally enough to knock someone off of their feet, as L proved moments later by falling out of his precariously crouched sitting position, effectively toppling his chair over in the process.

'_Heh. Chair fail.'_ Katherine just barely managed to cover a laugh with a well-timed cough at the thought—or perhaps she hadn't quite managed, judging by the glare she received from Aizawa. After another cover-cough, she shrugged guiltily.

"Shinigami… are we supposed to accept the existence of such a thing…?"

"Sh… shinigami?" Matsuda said. "No way…"

Katherine glanced between Light and the shinigami in the room with them at that precise moment, before saying, "Shinigami… Death God? Maybe it's just a way of referring to their powers—given all this 'God of the New World' talk about Kira, you know? I doubt shinigami could _actually_ exist, don't you, Light?"

The shinigami that just so happened to be hovering over Light's shoulder cackled as he replied, keeping his composure without any sign of strain, "I agree. You're right, Ryuzaki, they can't possibly exist."

L glanced back at them. "Kira also made prisoners write messages that seemed to support the existence of Shinigami," he said.

"Then should we assume this is the work of the same Kira?" Yagami asked uncertainly.

"That's not possible," Light said. "If it was the same Kira, he would have never replied to our tape—he wouldn't have gone along with stopping L from appearing on television."

"Could the original and the second Kira have already joined forces, then?" Aizawa asked. "They could be using the word Shinigami for the sake of confusing the investigation team."

"That's also highly doubtful," L replied, standing back up, righting his armchair as he did. "If they were working together, what Light-kun said would still apply—they wouldn't cease in their plans to kill me. The second Kira seems to be acting from his own feelings, totally unrelated to Kira's actual goal of changing the world. The second Kira's feelings…" he said slowly, again taking his seat in the armchair, "are only the desire to meet Kira."

"So he's only interested in Kira, not changing the world," Katherine said. She gave a hollow laugh. "Sounds like we've got a rabid fangirl on our hands, if you ask me."

"That actually seems plausible, given their actions so far," Light agreed. "And it definitely seems likely that the word 'shinigami' only refers to their ability to kill."

"And others' views of them as gods. It seems to fit in."

"… Yes." L nodded. "At the very least, it definitely has _some_ meaning between the first and second Kira. We can try to set things up to learn more."

"Like sending in another video?" Light asked. "We could reveal ourselves as frauds if we continue, given how little we know right now."

"No. From now on, we'll allow Kira and the second Kira to handle everything."

"Let them…?" Aizawa said, voicing everyone else's shock.

"We can assume that the second Kira is content—even if he knows the video was created by the police, he has succeeded in getting Kira's attention, using terms only the two of them would understand. We will run this reply on the six o'clock news on Sakura TV. Kira must be paying attention to the videos being sent back and forth, and would want to prevent the second Kira from getting caught by the police. He'll start worrying about what will happen if he doesn't interfere, so it's possible he may send a reply next. Even if this isn't the case, the second Kira will likely become more reckless if he receives no reply whatsoever, and send more information to pressure Kira into meeting him. It would still be better if Kira were to send in a reply to avoid this—then we could stand a chance of getting some physical evidence against Kira himself.

"We need to closely examine every piece of mail sent to any television station. I will decide whether or not they can broadcast anything sent by the first or second Kira. For now, let's gather all the evidence we can against the second Kira."

* * *

Research that night led Katherine to many Kira fan pages, with many Kira fans claiming to be the infamous "second Kira," everything coming to dead ends. It was all rather perturbing—not only the dead ends, but also trying to figure out exactly why Al had yet to be seen on the news. The only reason she wasn't out cold like the others was because she found herself incapable of sleeping; her thoughts just kept returning to Al, wondering exactly when the media would act, and exactly when Kira would act. Would Kira just view him as another criminal? Would it be the first or second Kira that got him? It all depended on two things: information and names.

Katherine hadn't failed to forget her mentioning to Light that Al was the only criminal to ever evade capture by L—but Light, as far as she knew, didn't have the eyes. However, if the media somehow got a hold of Al's name and released information of his past offenses, as well as offences blamed on him by the government in Ireland and L himself, it was hard to say exactly how Light would react. The second Kira, unless it was someone who knew of Al's link to the Kira investigation, would simply treat him as any other criminal and give him a heart attack.

None of this, however, answered that question that was still ringing in her mind: _What_ was taking the media so long?

A new headline, stemmed from a Google search, rang out at her; "Photographs of 'Irish Werewolf' vanish into thin air." Katherine remembered that operation all too well, and they had all quite frankly been surprised that it took so long for anyone to notice. It had started immediately after they had made it to Japan and had gone on for that long; Pat hacking into various sites on the internet and deleting any photograph he could find, acquaintances back in Ireland getting rid of the original copies and anything else they could find. It had been easier than it had originally sounded; Al was careful wherever he went and very few pictures of him had actually gotten out, with absolutely no mug shots mixed among those that had. Most of them were disguised, making it even harder to actually get anything out of them.

Perhaps the media was still trying to get a positive identification on the new photograph…?

"This doesn't look relevant to the Kira case."

It was Katherine's turn to fall out of a chair this time, out of surprise at the sudden voice behind her. Picking herself back up, she shot a glare at L. For just how long had he been looking over her shoulder? "Don't sneak up on me like that." That was all she was planning to say to him as she sat back down in her chair and hit the back button on the internet browser a few times, but the creepy insomniac obviously wasn't quite done yet.

"The history on that browser," he continued, "points to there being a lot of searches unrelated to the Kira case over the past few days." She glanced over her shoulder at L, and sighed after a moment.

"I'm still trying to find leads," she said, annoyed, "but everything's leading to dead ends. We all know that we're sort of at the mercy of the second Kira's likeliness to screw things up at the moment. I'm not the only one surfing the internet on the job," she added. "I saw Matsuda-san on some anime forum the other day."

"It would seem someone has been researching one of my previous cases."

"And?" She turned in the chair to face him, crossing her arms over its back and sitting on her knees. She raised an eyebrow. "Go ahead and say something, if you think you have to. Otherwise, just walk away and let me get on with what I'm doing."

He stood there, slouched, hands in his pockets. Looking at her, not curiously or accusingly, just as expressionless as he ever had been, the blank look of any crash test dummy about to hit a wall head on at sixty miles per hour. The look bothered her much more than any look of accusation. "What reason do you have to be investigating Alvin McManerberry?"

Katherine sighed. "I know more about him than you do, why would _I_ need to investigate him? I'm… investigating the media, I guess."

"You're wondering what's taking them so long." Her brow furrowed. He _knew_, he was only playing with her head. "If you will give your full attention back to the Kira case, I can tell you."

After a moment, she nodded slowly. "I… I will."

"Any credible news station won't take a photograph of someone on the street and claim it to be a suspected serial murderer without confirmation. It wasn't a station like Sakura TV that took his picture, it was a credible news network who only wishes to help the public keep themselves safe."

"And they can't confirm it?" L was taking a seat in his preferred armchair now, a few feet away from Katherine's chair. "Because of the lack of photographs to compare it to."

"A few still exist," L said, "but it's not as though Japan would have any need for having any of them. Not until now, at least. The media went to the police, the police sent the photograph to me."

"They're asking you to confirm it."

"It was also sent to Ireland. It would be pointless for me to lie when it has already been confirmed, but they're still awaiting my confirmation since I am still at the head of that case. I have withheld my opinion so far. Unless the NPA threatens to withdraw their help from the Kira investigation, I will remain without comment, as I no longer view Alvin McManerberry as a suspect in that case. I thought his involvement in the case seemed strange from the beginning. The most he had ever had in violence charges in the past seemed limited to bar fights. As the case went on, I began to suspect that the strange letters left at the murder scenes were left for him rather than by him. I only continued the case with him as the main suspect because he was the only connection I had to whoever was truly behind the murders. A criminal who left no evidence and killed in a seemingly impossible manner… the targets and the methods were different, but the similarities between the killings in Ireland and Kira's murders can't be ignored. I believe your friend knows a lot more about the killer than anyone else, and his knowledge could be vital in catching Kira."

Katherine stared at the hardwood floor, taking all of this in. He hadn't greatly suspected Al from the beginning of it all, but hadn't cleared his name because he was only a tool in all of it, just a piece of the puzzle. That was probably how he was viewing everyone on the investigation team, as just dispensable pawns. He had lost one already, but gained one, as well as a heftier game piece out of the whole deal. That's all any of them were, just pieces in this morbid game of L and Kira's. L didn't value his allies as people, only as numbers.

"And if the NPA does threaten to pull back their support," she said, "you'll give them their confirmation."

"Yes."

"What about his name? Going to give them that if they ask for it?" She looked at him. "I don't doubt for a second that you have it."

"If they make it a part of their demands, then yes. It could be sooner than later. A majority of the NPA distrusts me after how long I spent heading their investigation through a computer. I suspect another week on average before they become persistent. The cooperation of the NPA is essential at this point of the investigation." Shaking her head, Katherine turned back around in her chair. Al was as good as dead already, one week wouldn't make any sort of difference. It wasn't as though they would be able to catch Kira and the second Kira within the next week. "I will try to negotiate with them for as long as possible. I am sorry it came to this."

"It's not like it's your fault the idiot went out without a bloody disguise…" she grumbled, closing the laptop. "I'm going to sleep," she continued, loud enough for him to hear. "Just have someone wake me up if Matsuda-san's phone alarm doesn't do it."

He remained silent, looking over the papers next to his coffee cup on the table in front of him. She watched him irately for a few minutes once she had picked her own armchair to sleep in, quite sure that she could grow to dislike L rather quickly.

Perhaps she was being unfair. He had already said he would try to negotiate with the NPA over this for longer than a week. Given it was L, given they needed him just as much as—if not more than—they needed him, they might be willing to negotiate regardless of their level of trust for him. She was just looking for someone to lay the blame on when it finally did happen. Sighing to herself, she looked at her knees. Unless L could hold off the NPA for another few _years_, and that was highly doubtful, Al was only a walking embodiment of death at this point. She probably wouldn't be able to see him again before it happened. There was no being optimistic about any of this. His survival was impossible, everyone who knew about the photograph knew that at this point.

Now she had something new to ponder over—why L was even bothering to prolong this. Any valuable information Al had on the Kira case, Katherine herself or Don or Pat would know of it. Prolonging the inevitable would only make it more painful in the end, so what was the point?

Katherine frowned, looking back at L for another long moment before maneuvering herself into a more comfortable position and closing her eyes. Nothing in this investigation was going to make sense. Nothing.

* * *

_CHAPTER! Yayness. If I missed any typos, I most sincerely apologize, but I feel like a zombie right now, and zombies just aren't good at proofreading any words unrelated to "Uuuuungh" or "Brraaaaaains." _

_Aaaaand your word of the day iiiiiiiiis... -drumroll-_

_Übermensch!_

_Random word generators make me a happy Comma._

_And on that bombshell, I'm... -passes out- _

_zzzzzzZZZZzzzzzZZZZzzzZZZ  
_


	10. Speculation

_Yep, another update. And I'm already a little ways into Chapter 11, since I was going to include the first scene of it at the end of this chapter, but it would have ended up being way too long and will just fit better in the next chapter. So, yeah. This one is done sooner than I expected it, actually._

_I'm glad I managed to finish this one early since I actually need to get a few hours of sleep tonight if at all possible. So... yay!_

_Review reply time!_____

yvonna_: Haha, it's all right. I thought it was a miracle myself, to be honest xD I'm just glad I found some motivation again._

___XxMichyBabyxX: Thanks, I'm quite glad you think so :) I'll eventually cover why she doesn't have a real name in this, but it's not as though it's a huge deal to the plot. She was born outside of a hospital and ended up in a pretty rundown orphanage that never got around to filling papers out for a few kids there. As far as how she picked this name, just flipping through books and finding one that appealed to her. In her case, the book was Wuthering Heights, she only changed the spelling a bit to make it her own._

___SasoLOVE111: Thanks! :D And how's this for sooner? Not quite two days. Granted I used to update the original version once a day, but I've kinda gotta work myself back towards doing that again..._

_Now onto teh story stuffs!_

_**Disclaimer**: I no own Death Notes. Sad day for Comma.  
_

_**Warnings**: Nicotine withdrawal. That's something that always merits a warning._

_**Quoteyness**: __  
This sort of work was more Pat's area of expertise than hers—he had already sent her a few text messages asking if he could possibly help with the cameras. L had refused on the grounds that he would be more likely to wire them back to the house Katherine had been staying in with them, and Pat had argued—to no avail—that he was going to do that regardless of whether he helped set them up or not._

_"Nevertheless," L said, "the police will be setting up the cameras, and it is doubtful they will want his help."_

_Katherine nodded in agreement. "I tried telling him that. He's just being stubborn. Don't be surprised if we somehow end up with a few extra cameras in Aoyama, I wouldn't put it past him to go through after the police and set more up."_

* * *

A sudden, rather unsettling feeling of being watched overcame L after having spent around thirty minutes with the laptop to get an estimate on the death toll at this point of the investigation. It was completely inexplicable—he had grown used to the concept of being watched since he had come to terms with the fact that every hotel room he had been in since nearly the beginning of the investigation had been lined with cameras and bugs, and this one probably was as well. He frowned before looking up from his laptop to find himself being glared at quite persistently.

That definitely explained it.

He looked back at his laptop. "Can I help you with something, Katherine-san?"

"It's May twelfth now," Katherine said, crossing her arms and taking a seat on the coffee table next to the laptop. "Nineteen days since he was spotted, nothing's happened. Are you going to tell me what's going on, or am I going to have to figure it out myself?"

"You haven't asked about it again," L pointed out.

She frowned. He had a point, but…. "Then are you going to bother telling me anything?"

"The others will be back from Sakura TV soon." He took the coffee cup on the end table next to his chair. "It would be better to discuss it later."

"Fine…" she said, standing up and making her way back over to the sofa. She picked up some papers from her side of the table and began idly flipping through them. "What was sent this time?"

"Aside from the video, Yagami-san mentioned a piece of a diary."

"Diary?" Her brow furrowed. "Maybe there's another hidden message for Kira within it?"

"It seems likely," L agreed, setting the coffee down beside the laptop this time, "but it's impossible to come to any conclusion without seeing it. They should be back with it very shortly."

Katherine frowned. He always seemed so short with everyone. It was understandable, she guessed, given how much he had to think about; he was the mastermind behind this whole investigation, after all. It was just sort of awkward sitting in the same room as someone in complete silence for so long. At least the others would be back soon. She only seemed to get along with Matsuda, but at least there was someone to talk to. And starting arguments with Aizawa was sort of fun occasionally.

Having associated with such loud people for the better part of her life, this sort of silence just felt strange to Katherine, even unnatural. She quite hoped she wouldn't be left alone with L too often. She might feel encouraged to loosen him up a bit if she was… which, she supposed, could turn out to be fun if done properly.

She jumped when the door to the hotel room opened—she had been too lost in thought to hear the lock click beforehand—and looked over to see Aizawa and Yagami enter the room, the latter carrying with him an envelope, most likely containing both the diary entry and the newest tape from the second Kira. He crossed the room and handed it to L.

"I informed Light as we were leaving Sakura TV," Yagami said as L pulled a sheet of paper out of the envelope and held it by its top edge a short distance from his face, reading through it quickly. "Matsuda is waiting in the lobby to let him in." L handed the paper to Yagami. There was more of that annoying silence as the paper was passed throughout the room. Katherine received it after Aizawa and skimmed through it. The last entry stuck out the most, but it would be obvious to even an idiot what would happen if this were broadcast on television. While it was a page of a diary from May 2003, a year ago now, there was no doubt it was referring to the current month.

The thirty-first, "We confirmed our Shinigami at the Giants game at the Tokyo Dome," would no doubt cause the cancellation of that very game this year, rendering that entry useless, but…

There were three other locations on the page; one on a date that had already passed, and was therefore probably nothing to be concerned with. The others—Aoyama on the twenty-second, Shibuya on the twenty-fourth—could be important. And for Aoyama, the entry even went as far as to mention notebooks. No one else on the investigation team but Light would recognize this as a clue from the second Kira, but it was there, clear as a bell for Katherine. They would probably examine both Aoyama on the twenty-second and Shibuya on the twenty-fourth as they were mentioned locations, but no one else would recognize the importance of the Aoyama entry.

Katherine frowned at the Aoyama entry again before retrieving her cell phone from her pocket, opening her fairly small list of contacts to find Don's number, and typing out a quick text message to him:

"Where was that club where Pat met that blond Japanese chick last year who ended up doing modeling later on and getting semi-famous?"

She shut her phone and pocketed it again. Blue Note had been the club in question, she was quite sure of that. The girl had been Misa, who had instantly decided upon meeting Katherine that they were best friends, much to Katherine's distaste. Misa would still text or call her occasionally, and she was definitely a Kira supporter, but that wasn't what she was concerned with—Misa was as much as suspect right now as any other Kira supporter out there; there was an alarming number of them, and the numbers were only growing every day from the way things seemed.

No, Katherine was only interested in finding out where Blue Note was. She had been there once and hadn't enjoyed it very much—which admittedly could have been in part due to Misa's presence there—so she hadn't been inclined to remember much about it. If it was in Aoyama, however, then that could be quite an interesting lead. Perhaps the second Kira wished to meet Kira in Blue Note. It wasn't a bad idea, all things considered. Such a place would be crowded, noisy, and they wouldn't have to worry about anyone bothering them. It was quite an ideal situation, more so even than them only meeting in private. However, if the second Kira had thought of it, then they had to realize the risk of leaving any clue, and would probably try to avoid the club, hiding out in a building near the club and watching for suspicious individuals heading into it.

Nevertheless, it seemed a possible lead… if Blue Note was in Aoyama. There was no telling when Don would actually get back to her. He tended to be averse to actually carrying a cell phone most of the time while at home, though he was more likely to than Al. Pat nearly always had him, but it was best just not to mention Misa to him—or any of his exes, for that matter… though he and Misa had never honestly dated. She had turned him down on more than one occasion, explaining her wishes to just remain friends, which was only more reason to just not mention her.

Katherine's phone buzzed inside her pocket—apparently she had been lucky enough to catch Don near his phone.

She wasn't lucky enough to get a serious reply, however.

"Did you really just wake me up for that?"

Katherine sighed, setting the paper down on the table—the other three were already discussing it and didn't notice her own silent investigation—and hitting the reply button to type another message. "Yes, I did, it's for the Kira case, now tell me. Was it Aoyama?" She shut her phone and shoved it back in her pocket again.

After a few minutes of waiting, she got the text she wanted. "It's in Aoyama, just looked it up. Apparently there's a concert there on the 22nd. Dunno if that helps, but it's right on the front of their website."

"Perfect," she whispered to herself, grinning. After texting a quick 'thanks' back, she waited for the next momentary silence to cut into the discussion the other three were having.

"I think the Aoyama entry might be important," she said. They looked at her in surprise. "'My friend and I showed off our notebooks in Aoyama' or something like that. I just checked with one of my coworkers," she said, holding up her phone, "and apparently there's a popular club in Aoyama called Blue Note. The entry is for the twenty-second, and apparently they're holding a concert or something on the twenty-second. That could also be a possible meeting place. An ideal meeting place, considering how crowded a club would get. No one would see two people meeting up there as strange."

"Isn't that jumping the gun a little?" Aizawa said uncertainly.

"Maybe," Katherine said, "but we probably should send someone to Aoyama on the twenty-second to scout out suspicious people anyway, so it'll just be another place to check. We haven't got many leads, have we?"

"No, we don't," L agreed, "which means this Blue Note and the area surrounding it is the best lead we have in Aoyama. For Shibuya, we would be best checking shopping centers—the entry mentions meeting a friend and buying winter clothes. We will still have to develop our strategy beforehand, and decide who will be going to both locations, and it would be a good idea to plant as many cameras as possible around both districts. It could turn out to be a waste of time, but it's safer to assume that the second Kira is more intelligent than he acts so we aren't caught off guard. We don't know if the other locations in the entry will be important, but assuming they are and not finding anything is better than assuming they aren't and missing an important opportunity."

Katherine's phone buzzed in her pocket again. She took it out and checked her new message quickly.

"Oh. That's what that was about then."

Sighing, Katherine stuffed the phone back in her pocket. That answered that question—they were definitely still putting up cameras and mics in the hotel suites.

* * *

They had gone on to discuss after Light got there their exact plans straight. They would air another message sometime after the next tape from the second Kira was aired, but before the twenty-second, agreeing to meet the second Kira. The group heading to Aoyama would include Light, Matsuda, and Katherine, and cameras would be planted over as much of Aoyama as possible beforehand, with quite as many undercover cops stationed there on that day as possible, provided the NPA agreed to it. They would pay particular attention to anyone suspicious around the vicinity of Blue Note in Aoyama, or anyone holding notebooks.

The same general plan was set for Shibuya, provided the second Kira didn't meet with Kira in Aoyama and announce this in another video between the twenty-second and twenty-fourth. There would be cameras, there would be undercover officers, and they would pay particular attention to shopping malls. As for the thirtieth, the Giants game would be cancel, with roadblocks all around the Tokyo Dome to lessen the public panic that entry would undoubtedly create.

Their plans were set. All that was left was to work out the smaller details. Katherine was frowning at the satellite view of Aoyama on Google maps as she and L attempted to work out where the cameras would be set up. She had never been great with maps. This sort of work was more Pat's area of expertise than hers—he had already sent her a few text messages asking if he could possibly help with the cameras. L had refused on the grounds that he would be more likely to wire them back to the house Katherine had been staying in with them, and Pat had argued—to no avail—that he was going to do that regardless of whether helped set them up or not.

"Nevertheless," L said, "the police will be setting up the cameras, and it is doubtful they will want his help."

Katherine nodded in agreement. "I tried telling him that. He's just being stubborn. Don't be surprised if we somehow end up with a few extra cameras in Aoyama, I wouldn't put it past him to go through after the police and set more up."

"Then why did he bother asking?" he said, tossing a glance at the cell phone Katherine was holding. It was quite obvious that L found the concept of cell phones extremely annoying for the most part. Katherine shrugged as she shut hers off.

"I don't know," she said. She shook her head. "I've known him for eight years and I still don't understand him." She pocketed her phone as it powered down and looked back up at the computer screen. "So that's where Blue Note is?" she said, looking at the map uncertainly. She had never been excellent with maps.

"Yes, according to this. Any glass front buildings near it would be ideal locations for cameras—the second Kira could wait inside any of them to scout out Kira. It is doubtful they would head immediately to this club unless they severely doubt the ability of the public to work out their clues, if the clue actually exists."

Katherine shrugged. "Speculation's all we've got right now." L gave a nod, silently examining the map.

This just wasn't going to do. Everyone else was asleep now, some by accident—Matsuda had fallen asleep idly looking through a stack of paperwork, which was therefore now on the floor next to the sofa, still in his hand—though most intentionally. Katherine didn't feel like sleeping yet, but she didn't really feel like being awake by herself with this insomniac, plotting her route through Aoyama in ten days' time.

She frowned, wishing she hadn't shut off her cell phone. At least being the go-between for Pat and L's argument a few minutes ago had been mildly entertaining. Things hadn't ever gotten boring back at that house with them, even with their own full-fledged investigation going on. Someone was always goofing off or acting ridiculous. And Al—he had been their equivalent to L, and while perhaps not as intelligent, he was at least better at working with others.

"So," Katherine said to L quite suddenly, "everyone is asleep now."

L glanced over at her. "That… would be a seemingly accurate observation," he agreed slowly. He wasn't entirely sure of why she felt the need to mention this, but he was learning from contact with the entire investigation team that it was sometimes better just to go along with things than question their purpose.

"You refused to explain what's going on with the situation with Al earlier," she said, "because the rest of the team might end up hearing about it when they came back." And the purpose of her previous statement had come forth without any unnecessary questioning. "They're all asleep now," she repeated. "So talk."

"The NPA hasn't made any nonnegotiable demands yet."

"None?"

"I've had to negotiate with them somewhat, but they have been mostly agreeable."

"Why are you even bothering?" L blinked owlishly at the computer screen in front of him at this before glancing back at her again. "It's not as though it's going to be avoidable. We're not going to catch Kira within the next few weeks, and I doubt the NPA is planning to give you much more than that. So what's the point?"

"We may be able to catch the second Kira before them," he said, "and they have made no demands for his name."

"Yet," Katherine said. "That'll be something else they think to ask for while you're prolonging it, just to make damn sure Kira can get him. Even most people who claim to be against Kira aren't any more, especially not with cases like Al's. He's the lead suspect in a string of brutal killings that spanned over a period of four, four and a half years, and he'd probably get the death penalty if he was put on trial anyway, so why not skip a step and just give him to Kira? That's how they'll be thinking. And just to be safe, just for insurance, they'll want his name. Drawing it out like this is only going to make everyone involved suffer. Knowing that it's going to happen is bad enough without being dragged out for this long, so what's the point? You say he's important to this investigation, but we've only gotten as far as you have in our investigation, no further. So _why_?"

"I would prefer, if I can, to avoid simply handing over the name and photograph of anyone to Kira, whether they are a criminal or only a suspect. I plan to hold off doing so for as long as possible. If the NPA continues to be cooperative, then we may very well catch Kira and the second Kira before they demand my approval to broadcast the photograph."

"You can't possibly be serious. Do you even _know_ how unrealistic you're being?"

"This investigation has lost one person already. Losing anyone or anything else to Kira without making any attempt against the odds is out of the question. This," he added, indicating the computer suddenly, "is the route you will be taking through Aoyama in ten days. The directions will be printed out, and there will be time to memorize them. Whoever intends to lead the way will need to memorize them."

She decided against bothering to argue with his sudden subject change. L was obviously impossible to argue with, so trying any more would have been pointless. She simply nodded and looked over the map and the route drawn over it, only half-bothering to try understanding it. After a minute or so of this, she announced she was going to sleep and walked over to the free sofa to fall down upon it.

She wasn't sure if she would be able to sleep tonight without a cigarette, but she had been out for a few days and it was about to drive her mad, even more so than arguing with that damned insomniac was going to drive her mad. His point was a fairly justified one, if he honestly cared about the people working with him. She wasn't sure if she believed he did or not at this point. He might be worried about losing another number; or he might honestly be worried about losing a valuable comrade, might actually have seen Ukita as something like a friend. Either way, it seemed immature, though she knew just from watching the investigation for so long that L was fine with admitting he was immature and stubborn.

Katherine rolled over on the couch to stare at the backrest, wondering exactly how this would all play out. Was there honestly a chance of Al surviving? She shut her eyes tightly at the thought—even considering pondering over it was only making her withdrawal headache worse.

* * *

_Now then. I need to get in a few hours of sleep, gotta get up early tomorrow. It's already 2:14 in the morning, so I bid the adieu..._

_HAH you thought I was going to leave without a word of the day. How foolish of you._

_The word of the day is oblongata . Why? Because anatomical words amuse me._

_Aaaaaand on that bombshell, I be hittin' the sack.  
_


	11. Rage

_IT'S DONE!_

_OH how glad I am to be finished with this chapter. It took longer than I expected, but it also came out longer than I expected. I spent all of today writing the last 3,500 or so words, so yeah. Kind of went on a marathon today to make up for my failure the day before due to being sick. But, it's done now. Depressed the hell out of me, but it's done, and I am happy about that._

_Review replies, I think._

_XXTakaraXX: Hope this was soon enough. I meant to have this one up yesterday, but that obviously didn't work. Dx_

_XxMichyBabyxX: Thanks! :D Yeah, my tenth grade English class was supposed to read it, buuuut we got a crazy drunk woman for a teacher that year and we ended up reading none of the novels we were supposed to. Long story short, I've never read it, only heard about it. I'll probably read it some day, along with all the other novels we were supposed to read that year._

_SasoLOVE111: Thanks :) Aaaand trust me, you probably can wait. I know I could've._

_And now, story stuffs._

_**Disclaimer**: NOOooOOOoooOoOo OWNSSSSSSSS_

_**Warnings**: Now what fun would that be? I think I'll just warn you about the swearing and be done with it.  
_

_**Quick-Quote**:  
"What are you talking about?" Light asked incredulously._

_"I'm just playing the 'annoying my least favorite cousin' role," she said, shrugging. "Sorry, I probably should have told you I was going to start practicing early, right?"_

_"Just wait until you're supposed to do it."_

_"Aww, come on, I've gotta get into character! You're not an actor, I wouldn't expect you to understand," she said, waving her hand dismissively._

* * *

L frowned at the word "Restricted" on the front of his ringing cell phone, wondering. Most important calls identified with the same word on the front screen of the device, whether from Watari giving him new information or Roger calling in a panic about something at the orphanage. However, Watari was perfectly capable of contacting L through the computer now, and it was doubtful that Roger had any reason to call. It would probably be easier to just let the device ring. Cell phones were more of an annoyance than a help most of the time, anyway.

But even so, there was a slight chance it could be important. L flipped open the phone—if it was a crank caller, it was just as simple as hanging up.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for answering. I wasn't looking forward to hacking into your computer if you hadn't."

L held the phone away from him for a second, examining its screen once again. Restricted. Of _course_.

He brought the phone back to his ear, and the voice at the other end continued before he could speak. "Now that you've figured out who I am," Al said, "I suppose you're wondering why I'm calling."

"There are cameras here," L said. It wasn't a question of whether or not there were at this point. "I take it you don't have very much faith in your subordinate's abilities."

"Only her ability to follow instructions. She gets a bit defiant at times. Don't worry; she won't give your investigation team any trouble. She's only defiant if I'm the one giving the orders, apparently." He sounded more like a concerned parent than an employer. It was presumable that he wasn't only working with hired hands, then. They were much like a crime family, albeit a rather small one; organized, well defined, and with an intelligent, nigh indestructible leader.

Almost indestructible, but not quite.

"Why are you calling?"

"I'm curious about your motives for keeping me alive."

L frowned. "I have discussed it with your subordinate already. I'm sure the conversation was caught on your cameras."

"I'm afraid I don't entirely believe your reasoning." He paused. "Well, I don't think that's _all_ of your reasoning, anyway. I think there's more." He paused, no doubt waiting for L to speak, but L remained silent. "I think yeh're going to refuse to give me up to the press until you find out more about your last case. Your only lost battle. I can tell you without any issue who it was," he continued, "but it won't do any good for you to know."

_Finally_. This was his opportunity, perhaps his last opportunity, to know. How right had he been, how wrong had he been? For as little as he had ever released to the press, his research had brought him to a near certainty that he could have never proved without first knowing how the killings were being committed—much the same as the Kira case itself. Now, if he could know _how_, then perhaps…

"He made himself look like the final victim," L said, "but his body was never found. That would be my conclusion from the way things played out. The police never found the location in the note from the last crime scene."

"I specifically knew where it was, I had stayed there once quite a few years back hiding from the police. Very few people knew of it. Apparently some old hermit had made it his home since, but he was killed and dragged off into the woods. He was there the entire time the murders were going on. Used them to frame me, made me go on a chase for him by threatening the few people I care about."

"Then it was someone you knew personally," L said, "and you know very few people personally. One of these people was the younger brother of a conman I believe to be a student of yours."

Al laughed. "Student? I suppose if you want to put it that way..."

"These two brothers ran away from home at the ages of twelve and fourteen, their father reported them missing. They stayed in the same town, but the law enforcement there wasn't exactly what it should have been at the time. This is evident in the fact that you were using the town as a safe haven, working at a bar there at the time under the name Alan Price. You lost your job shortly after a murder took place nearby—you weren't blamed, in fact you caught the murderer, if I'm not mistaken. I believe that sometime between the time the brothers left home and the time the murder took place is when you met them."

"They were unfortunate enough to come into my bar and try using fake IDs on me. It didn't go over well, though it was a good effort for beginners."

"I believe it is the older brother, who most commonly goes by the alias Darrell Marcus, that is here in Japan right now. He is now also somewhat infamous in his field of work."

"It is him."

"The younger brother ran away shortly after the death of his mother."

There was a sigh on the other end of the conversation. "He watched her get shot and ran off immediately afterwards. We assumed he was dead when we never heard from him after a couple years."

"But he wasn't." Al was silent. "He deluded himself into think it was you who had killed her. The murders started two years later with a woman by the name of Sarah McConnell, and the subsequent victims had hardly any connections with her or any others; the ones that did seemed only to be coincidental. The final death, in Carndonagh, the carcass of a man was found lying in front of the Donagh, his message painted on the cross itself in his own blood. 'You know where I am.' I take it you did."

"I knew where he would be as soon as I made it to the town," Al said. "You've obviously done your homework and managed to profile Sean quite well for someone who never even had the pleasure of meeting him. I'm impressed. If this is what the near legendary L is capable of, it's doubtful that Kira stands a chance. Of course, you had three years to dig this information up on all of us, and there's no telling how much of the world Kira will have on his side within that time.

"I take it," he said, "that you want to know how, and that's what I won't be telling you."

"It could be the same way Kira is killing," L said. "It would be invaluable information to have."

"And also incomprehensible in your current mindset," Al said, "which is why I won't be telling you. I can relate with you on that point. Yeh're level headed, you believe that there will be evidence and you will find it. I can tell you that there will be physical evidence, but it'll be pointless trying to figure out exactly how to present it to a judge, since you won't be able to. 'S not possible. I still hardly believe it myself, and I came in direct contact with it."

"Then it is the same way." There was no question of it. "One victim died of a heart attack. A coyote was found dead outside of his house that night. He shot it and died of a heart attack in his back yard."

"Yes," Al said, "which should tell you something new about Kira.

"Now, I'll have you know, I didn't call just so you could confirm all yer research over the past few years on that case. I called about something else. You seem to think that you have the sole choice of whether I'm going to live or die by Kira's hand. You don't seem to realize that all I have to do is call up the NPA and threaten to carry over my murderous rampage to Japan. They'll pull their support from the Kira case so quickly that yer head'll be spinnin'. They'll take you out as head of the case in Ireland and my picture'll end up on the news anyway. Maybe not my real name, but it's not as though that matters now, yeah?"

"The NPA requires my approval to release the photograph to the media as of right now," L said. "There isn't any reason to give them my approval as long as I can negotiate. If the photograph is released, you will undoubtedly be killed. The NPA is as aware of this as I am—they simply don't care."

"You won't be able to hold back the NPA for much longer. There's already unrest about this whole ordeal. They're not happy with you, and you've managed to keep it from the investigation team thus far. What about when they find out? Do you think they'd side with you and risk losing their jobs? I'm not saying they aren't good people, but I know that Yagami and Aizawa have families they need to support. Matsuda is bound to follow Yagami wherever he goes. Mogi, it could go either way, but he's probably less likely to stay if Yagami leaves. I'm sure you understand your situation."

L bit his thumbnail, staring down at the now cold cup of coffee in his free hand. He had understood this situation from the beginning. But losing anyone one else to Kira… he would prefer to avoid it, if at all possible. Regardless of whether he was a murderer or not—and the odds were against him being one—Al was a criminal, and an infamous one before those killings even had started. This didn't give Kira the right to judge him. Kira had no right to judge anyone. He was not a god, had no authority to decide the fate of any human being.

"I don't know whether you wish to keep me alive because you're afraid of losing against Kira again or because you think I could be of further use in this case, or even because you actually value the lives of those you're working with," he continued, "and I also don't care. I'm going to die, I've accepted that, and you have about as much right to keep me alive as Kira has to kill me. You won't convict Kira before releasing my photograph to the media, because you won't be able to prove he ever killed anyone. Unless you plan to kill him yourself when you discover who he is, there's nothing you'll be able to do. Of course if you can prove it, more power to you. You just won't be able to before the NPA starts threatening you if you keep putting this off."

On the monitors, L continued biting his thumbnail and looking thoughtfully down at his coffee. He had obviously been aware for some time that he was stuck in between a rock and a hard place in all of this, that the NPA wouldn't cooperate forever. He had even openly regarded the latter of the two facts himself when Katherine had first confronted him over it. The NPA of course didn't know that Al was working with L on the Kira case himself, or that any criminals were, and it was obvious enough why their continued ignorance of this was necessary. L knew there wasn't anything he could do, anything anyone could do to prevent Al's death at this point, only prolong it. As far as he was concerned, he had been dying since he had noticed that photographer on the other side of the street snapping pictures of him that day, more than a month ago now. The physical and mental weakening that came with most terminal illnesses wasn't there, but it was still one in the same as any cancer or parasite. That's all Kira was, just a parasite, killing and thriving on his success—and one day, he would be crushed just like the worm he was.

"What'll it be, then? Are you taking the easy way or hard way?"

L had apparently run out of thumbnail to bite, as he now switched to an index finger. "I will give the NPA my approval within the next forty-eight hours," he said.

"Smart choice. I guess that means that we're pretty much finished here, yeah?" Al stood from the sofa in the monitoring room, stretching. "Good, my shift was over, anyway. Good luck with Kira. You'll be needing it."

He shut his phone and pocketed it—L frowned at his own cell phone for a moment before doing the same. The rest of the investigation team remained asleep, none the wiser to the negotiations that had just gone on around them, unknowing that Al would undoubtedly be dead within the next few days.

All in all, it was probably better that less people knew.

* * *

The twenty-second had arrived, and Katherine was adjusting her wig with a rather uncomfortable look on her face as Light went over their plans. They had met up in Aoyama that morning, and he had gone into planning a little further on the subject of how they could stay even more inconspicuous—which was the precise reason Katherine had been forced into this ridiculous disguise.

"We'll be meeting with a group of people from the college, so we can just blend in with them. Obviously you'll be using aliases. You're my cousins from out of town and—"

"And I'm his little sister, Amaya, who decided to tag along just because of my favorite pastime of annoying my least favorite cousin half to death," Katherine said with a careful nod—her hand flew to her head to check the position of the short black wig. She knew that it was unlikely that it would fall off, but it still felt like it was going to.

Light ignored her and continued. "You'll be using your regular alias name," he told Matsuda, "but not as a police officer, obviously."

"Because Light-kun hangs out with junkies and alcoholics, and they'd just scatter if they knew that the police were—"

"What are you talking about?" Light asked incredulously.

"I'm just playing the 'annoying my least favorite cousin' role," she said, shrugging. "Sorry, I probably should have told you I was going to start practicing early, right?"

"Just wait until you're supposed to do it."

"Aww, come _on_, I've gotta get into character! You're not an actor, I wouldn't expect you to understand," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "Now, more importantly, I don't look anything like Katherine Lynton, do I? It looks genuine enough?"

"Sure," Light agreed.

"You definitely look shorter," Matsuda pointed out.

She frowned down at the schoolgirl clothes. "Well, it's not like I could have worn my platforms…" she said with a sigh. "They're sort of my trademark. I guess I'm all right. I don't recognize myself, so I guess no one else will. Not like I spend much time at the college anyway…"

The group they were meeting with arrived within the next few minutes. Katherine kept her eyes peeled around the surrounding area as Light was introducing herself and Matsuda as his cousins from out of town. All she had to look for was another Shinigami—how many of those could possibly be hovering around Aoyama? She highly doubted that there would be many attending the jazz show at the Blue Note tonight, and therefore there probably wouldn't be many flapping around the streets at this time of day. If she noticed one following someone around, then that person was likely to be the second Kira.

It wasn't long after they started walking that she noticed someone. She almost slipped up and gasped at the sight, but she managed to pass it off as a sneeze, thereafter stating that she was allergic to dorks and giving Light a meaningful look.

The Shinigami was standing behind a girl with a short black bob and round glasses, wearing a school uniform. They were inside a small diner, and the girl was facing the front window, staring outside. Katherine saw her say something to the Shinigami, looking confused. The girl looked vaguely familiar, but it was the Shinigami that completely baffled her; it was Rem, the first of their kind that Katherine had ever spoken with directly, the one who had showed up shortly after Katherine had picked up the King's death note to come explain to her exactly what it was.

Even after all these years, she had still been trying to convince herself that Shinigami weren't real, that the death note was a load of garbage. She wasn't trying to convince herself as much as she used to, but there were occasions when she would just flip through the blank pages of her own death note, wondering if she was just insane. Now she had confirmation that she wasn't. The girl inside the diner was talking to Rem, so that concluded that she could also see Rem. That meant Rem was real, which meant Katherine hadn't gone crazy. For Katherine, she wasn't sure if the fact that she wasn't insane was very comforting. All this did was give her reason to believe that it would be impossible to prove the true identity of Kira.

And it was definitely strange that this girl seemed so familiar… she supposed she should ponder over it later.

* * *

"_Ryuzaki, Sakura TV has received a message from the second Kira. The postmark is the twenty-third. I'll send you the video through this computer now._"

Katherine watched with the rest of the investigation team as the L on the computer screen was replaced with those badly drawn letters they had all grown to recognize too well. She had wished she could have told them the day before that there was no need to go to Shibuya, that the second Kira had seen Kira in Aoyama already within their group, but knew it probably wouldn't have gone over very well.

The amateurishly distorted voice spoke up from the computer's speakers. "_I was able to find Kira. People at the TV station, policemen, thank you all very much._"

"He found Kira already?" Matsuda said in astonishment. "This is bad…"

Light definitely looked a little on the nervous side, probably wondering precisely how the second Kira had managed to discover him, wondering if perhaps it was only a bluff. His Shinigami had probably only told him the cost of the trade for Shinigami eyes, not that it would allow him to see other death note users. That had been one thing Rem had told Katherine, and no doubt had told this girl. She couldn't help but wonder if Rem had told her anything about Katherine. Moreover, she still couldn't get her head around how familiar that girl had looked. She didn't know very many people in Japan, mostly only the investigation team.

"Yes," Yagami agreed with Matsuda. "So they've already joined forces…"

"Well, it did only say 'found,'" Katherine said. "Not quite the same thing as 'met.'"

"It's unlikely they've met yet," L said, "or at least that they met before this video was sent. It is very possible that the second Kira has only managed to locate Kira and hasn't contacted him yet. At this point, the police should send out a message to the second Kira." He lowered the cup of tea in his hands.

"Message…?" Matsuda repeated uncertainly.

"We offer the second Kira leniency in exchange for the identity of Kira. This will be even more effective if Kira doesn't know who the second Kira is yet. Asahi-san, would it be possible to bribe the second Kira with no sentencing at this point?"

"After killing so many…?" Yagami shook his head. "That seems doubtful."

"Then we will be vague about our exact terms, and simply tell him we will be lenient and he will be regarded as a hero around the world. I would like this done quickly. It is 7:25 right now, I would like this aired at 8:55 if possible, Asahi-san."

Katherine's cell phone buzzed in her pocket, nearly startling her out of her chair. She received a couple of strange glances as she retrieved it and opened it.

"Yes, understood," Yagami replied to L.

"I'll be back in a little while." Katherine was out of the room before L could give any further instruction, dialing on her cell phone. She shut the door to the next room behind her, taking a seat at the table in the small kitchenette, hands shaking as she held her phone up to her ear, her other hand now digging a pack of cigarettes out of her purse she had picked up in Shibuya yesterday. She had a feeling they would be gone before the end of the night.

Don answered after one ring.

"Kat—"

"What happened?"

"You need to calm—"

"Just tell me what happened," she said, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder as her other hand dug through her bag for a lighter. "Just say it so we can get this over with, please."

She heard him take a deep breath, pausing before speaking again. "Al's dead." Katherine's hand brushed against a lighter finally—it clenched into a fist around it. "Kira… he… he can control cause of death."

"What did the bastard do?" She lit the cigarette and dropped the lighter on the table, taking her cell phone back in her now free hand. There was no response. "What did he _do_?"

"Well… I had to fight the gun away from him and… he snapped out of it for a second."

"And had a heart attack?"

"He didn't snap out of it for long. He got the gun back." Katherine shut her eyes tightly, hand coming to her forehead. "I let my guard down for half a bloody second and he got the fecking thing back." Then Light had been the one to do it. The NPA had demanded his real name, Light had recognized his description as the same description Katherine had given him. He could have just died of a heart attack if she had just kept her damned mouth shut, but now… "There was a note. I'm trying to figure out if it's anything like the ones Kira made those prisoners leave. I'd… if I didn't know Al, if he hadn't snapped out of it for that split second, I might think…" He was quiet for a moment. "I know it was Kira."

"And what are we going to do if there is a message?" she asked quietly. "It'll just be more fecking nonsense like everything else has been. It—it's not going to do any good to know."

"It'll prove that Kira can kill in ways other than heart attack." She shook her head. "Are you coming back?"

"I… I-I don't know if—" She inhaled sharply, tried to swallow down the lump in her throat that was making it so hard to speak. "I don't know if they'll let me. I won't for very long if I do. I… the second Kira's found Kira and I don't want to stay away for too long, I can't—I…"

"I get it, don't worry. I'll send you the note as soon as I'm finished with it."

Katherine's eyes snapped open as she thought of something. "Where's Pat?" Silence. That wasn't a good sign. "Don. Where is he?"

"He was out when Al… when it happened. I told him what happened when he came back and he took off again. He knew about it, but he didn't take it very well from the beginning. He'll come back," he added. "He left me a voicemail about an hour ago saying he was somewhere in Aoyama. I don't know where exactly, just some bar."

"I'll… I'll be there tomorrow if I can. I don't want to leave tonight, we've got more tapes from Aoyama to go over. I doubt I'll sleep, so I can help with the night shift."

* * *

Yagami was already on the phone and setting plans with the NPA when Katherine left the back room, everyone else hard at work either examining the tapes from Aoyama or doing general research. She was quiet, and no one really paid her much attention until she quite calmly stopped in front of Light's chair and, completely unprovoked, punched him in the face.

Light was quick to jump out of the chair and get out of her way—Katherine almost immediately found herself being held back when she continued to advance on him, her calm demeanor disappearing quite suddenly. "You son of a _bitch_!"

Light had never utilized his acting skills so well. Holding his jaw, he looked at her as though she were insane—and perhaps she was, but with good enough reason. "What—what are you—?" he began, shocked.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about, you fucking _murderer_!" She attempted—and failed—to elbow whoever was holding her back in the stomach. "You killed Al!"

"_What_?" He shook his head, lowering his hand. "You're not making any sense, what—_who's_ dead?"

"Al—_Al_, you know who he is, I told you I was working for him, and he's _dead _and _you_ killed him!"

"H—how could I have—I've been here all day!"

"We've already proven that Kira can manipulate time of death, genius, got any other excuses?" she snarled at him. She managed to succeed this time in elbowing her captor and glanced back for half a second to see Matsuda doubled over. She stayed where she was however, glowering at Light.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" he demanded.

Fists clenched, still shaking, she shot a glare at the Shinigami cackling over his head quickly before looking back down at Light. "You know what it means," she said venomously.

Light scoffed. "You _still_ think I'm Kira? I'm here to catch him just like everyone else in this room!"

"Yeah, good cover."

"You—!"

"I would like to ask that both of you please calm down." They both looked at L, who had only just looked up from the cup of coffee he was dropping sugar cubes into. Sighing, Katherine took a seat in the empty chair across from Light's. He returned to his, watching her warily. "Katherine-san, if you would please explain what's going on—"

"Fine," she snapped, shooting a glare at Light. "I'll be glad to."

* * *

_Nothing like Light-abuse to cheer you up after killing your favorite character. It still hasn't completely set in Katherine's mind that he's dead, but that'll come pretty soon. I'm not sure, but I think I feel worse for Don's position in all of this. I've put him through way too much hell between this story and Animalistic Tendencies. _

_I already know pretty much exactly what I'm covering in the next chapter, so I'll probably work on that tonight. I'm so glad my brother woke me up earlyish this morning. So much more time to write :D_

_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the word of the day ..._

_Banjo!_

_It's a little-known fact that Pat once took up playing banjo for a few weeks, but realized pretty quickly that he didn't actually like any bands that had a banjo, and therefore ended up giving up on it. Just thought I'd let everyone know that. Seriously, I've got entire lists of random quirks that they all have that may or may not eventually be mentioned in this fic or Animalistic Tendencies. That's what over-development does! :D  
_

_And on that bombshell, I'm out. I need to go find something to eat since I haven't all day and it's already six in the evening.  
_


	12. Confession

_YAY ANOTHER CHAPTER!_

_:D I bet this one's a familiar one for those of you who read the original version. Heh._

_I wanted to include two scenes in this one, but I had totally forgotten that this scene itself had taken up a chapter and a half in the original, sooooo that didn't happen this time. But hey, what can ya do? The first scene in the next chapter should be totally new, anyway, so whatever. _

_Onto the review replies, even though I wrote this one so fast there were only two reviews on the last chapter. Whoops! :)_

_SasoLOVE111: Gotta love dialect swearing. xD Though I think my favorite is the conversion of "shit" to "shite." I don't think I've used that in this fic yet, but yeah. I actually use that in real life. Yeeeeah, I'm now very sad that Al's not going to be in the fic anymore. But it happened in the original, so it had to happen in this one._

_Apathetical: Heh. Four new chapters now. :D Yaaaaay you're back! :D And I'm jealous. I wanna go to Disney Land. Though I have been to Disney World, so I guess I can't complain._

_Story-related stuffs now? Yeeeeah, why not._

_**Dieselclam**: I don't own Death Note, but I do own a cactus, so I guess that counts for something. Right? ... stop looking at me like I'm crazy._

_**Warnings**: Er... :D_

_**Quickquote!**_  
_Katherine stared up at the ceiling. "This isn't going to be easy to prove by any means," she said, "but I have to be honest." She closed her eyes. "I know for a fact that Yagami Light is Kira, and I'm willing to use any means I have to prove it."_

_L looked over at her sharply. That was a rather implausible claim for anyone to make. "You know this for a fact?"_

_"Well, in your terms," she said, looking over, "I'd say I'm at least ninety percent sure." L blinked. Ninety percent was rather high._

* * *

"Pause it there."

"Why?"

"Oh, forget it!"

Katherine snatched the remote from L and pressed the pause button herself, earning her a wary look from the insomniac. It had been hours since the incident earlier, and Light had since gone home with a bruised cheek and a won argument—the rest of the investigation team had spent the better part of the night being extremely careful of Katherine. She had shut off her cell phone so she wouldn't hear from Pat or Don—she just didn't want to think about any of it right now, just wanted to immerse herself in these Aoyama tapes and try to figure out who this girl was.

She looked at the girl sitting inside the small diner, frowning.

Aoyama. That had been the only place she and that Shinigami had been, or any Shinigami for that matter… with the exception of Light's, of course. She had "found" Kira, but did that mean that she had found Light or Katherine? Did she honestly know which of them was Kira? She would be able to see neither of their life spans, as they were both death note users. But would she have sent that tape if she wasn't sure…?

Katherine tilted her head one way, squinted, the other way, blinked rapidly. She knew this girl, and this girl obviously had to know her well enough to know that she wasn't Kira. But who in Japan would have known Katherine well enough to know any such thing, besides—

"Misa."

"Katherine-san?"

Katherine held up her hand. "I knew I recognized her. The girl with the glasses. She's Amane Misa. She's… I think she's a year or two older than me, I… I can't believe I didn't recognize her." She shook her head. "She's in disguise, but one of the first things I thought of when I saw the Aoyama entry on that diary page was her. I met her _at_ the Blue Note. This is…" She shook her head and pressed the play button, then the fast forward. "I'll play it at right around the time me and Light and Matsu would have been walking past."

L frowned, watching the time in the corner of the screen. Whatever this was, it seemed that she thought it to be important, and hadn't mentioned it up until now—then again, she had likely only wanted to be certain before mentioning it to everyone. This Amane Misa could be important, nevertheless.

Katherine paused it. "Watch her closely. We walk past within the next couple of minutes. This diner is only a few buildings down from the Blue Note." She pressed play.

For a few minutes, she didn't seem to do anything. L bit his thumbnail, watching and waiting for something to happen. Finally, she stood from her seat and leaned over the table, adjusting her glasses and watching outside the diner—her eyes had widened, and she was quite suddenly more alert. She sat back down and looked over—speaking… but to whom?

L's brow furrowed. It was obvious that she wasn't talking to herself, or at least that she thought she was talking to someone else. Possibly some sort of psychosis, or was it something else entirely? The word Shinigami floated around in his mind for a moment, then away. No, something like that wasn't possible, they had _all_ agreed on that already.

"I guess it's possible that she's just gone off her rocker and she did that upon recognizing me," she said, "but still, that's the most suspicious thing we have so far. Last I knew of her, she was a huge Kira supporter—apparently Kira killed the man responsible for the death of her family. Misa was a lot of things, but she wasn't nuts. She was talking to _something_."

"Do you know anything else about her?" L asked, looking over from the screen.

"She became a model. She's been in a few magazines. She still calls me occasionally, she decided while she was hanging out with Pat that I was going to be her new best friend, apparently. And if you watch now," she added, and L looked back at the screen, "she leaves. Just after we walk by, like she found what she was looking for."

L frowned. I was just a little too suspicious to ignore. It could have just as easily been a young woman with a dormant case of psychosis starting to affect her, or even something explainable by some perfectly normal rationalization. It was quite hard to say exactly what it was, but it was most certainly suspicious.

"We will look into her," L said. "How likely is it that the fingerprints were hers?"

"From the first videos?" Katherine shook her head. "Not very likely. Pat has a bad habit of bragging about things he really shouldn't brag about to impress women, she knew pretty early on about his career choice and actually learned a little from him. Never leave fingerprints, frame someone else if you have someone else available, know how to make a good disguise. I doubt she had these powers as far back as then or she'd have probably killed us. She doesn't have any photographs of us," Katherine added. "We were all pretty careful about that. Al just…" She sighed, looking down at her knees.

"It would be impossible for her to erase all the evidence," L said. "Once the envelopes are analyzed, more information should start to come out that we can use. Amane Misa seems to be a good lead by circumstantial evidence right now."

Katherine nodded. "Someone like Pat might be able to leave virtually nothing behind, but Misa's not on his level, even if she did learn a bit from him."

"This further supports your theory of Light-kun being Kira," L said. Katherine looked down at her knees, giving another sigh.

"I know it seems like I'm trying to incriminate him because I don't like him, but that isn't it at all." she said, "It's sort of the opposite of that. The reason I can't bring myself to like him is because of my suspicions. I know I apologized and admitted I was in the wrong today, but it was all lies. I don't… I just don't trust him." She unfortunately couldn't mention that she didn't trust him because of the winged beast she could see flying around behind his head.

"How long have you suspected him?"

"Ever since the FBI agents died. We—that's to say, my… er… coworkers, I guess—have been suspicious ever since an accident with a bus early on in the Kira case. A criminal by the name of Nakaokaji Matsushiro was killed after jumping off of a bus. Eyewitness accounts say that the man attempted to hijack the bus to an amusement park, ended up seeing something at the back of the bus and firing his gun at it, running out of ammo. He demanded that the driver stop the bus, jumped out of it into oncoming traffic and was killed. This happened during the time Raye Penber was investigating Light, and Raye Penber was on that bus. Other eyewitness accounts of others on the bus include a description of a teenage couple, probably in their final years of high school or early years of college, seemingly just on a date gone horribly wrong. They left the scene quickly. The boy—brunette, slim, well-dressed for someone his age. Sounds to me like it was Light that Penber followed onto the bus, doing his job. This took place a week before the FBI agents were murdered. I think it was an operation set up by Kira so he could get Penber's name—I think that's precisely what Light did on that bus that day."

"This also supports the theory that Kira can kill by means other than heart attack," L said, "but there still is no proof of that. But still… the criminal suddenly sees a 'monster' at the back of the bus, and the girl in this video seems to believe she is talking with something…" Still chewing his thumbnail, still staring at the television screen. The word Shinigami flashed in his mind yet again and he shooed it away. "It's still a far stretch," he concluded. "It is indeed likely that Light was the one on the bus—it was during the period in which Penber was investigating the Yagami family if it was a week before the agents were killed—but without evidence, nothing would come of it."

That was the most annoying thing—the complete lack of evidence in this case so far. Even with the case in Ireland, it was exactly the same…. Al's words rang in his mind—it was something L wouldn't be able to accept in his current mindset, according to him; it was something even he wouldn't be able to prove.

Katherine stared up at the ceiling. "This isn't going to be easy to prove by any means," she said, "but I have to be honest." She closed her eyes. "I know for a fact that Yagami Light is Kira, and I'm willing to use any means I have to prove it."

L looked over at her sharply. That was a rather implausible claim for anyone to make. "You know this for a fact?"

"Well, in your terms," she said, looking over, "I'd say I'm at least ninety percent sure." L blinked. Ninety percent _was_ rather high. He wasn't sure if she was being completely serious or just didn't understand the way percentages worked. She looked back at the television. "I have… I guess you could call it indirect evidence, but it would prove to be fatal evidence against Light. I just haven't shared it with anyone yet… anyone but Al."

"Do you intend to share your evidence with the investigation team."

She scoffed. "No one would believe it. I still don't." She glanced over at L. "And if you believed it, you still see me as a suspect, so it wouldn't matter anyway. If I can trust that you don't suspect me, I'd be more than willing to share it."

L remained silent. The odds that she was Kira, since Al died especially, had dropped close to zero. They had never been very high to begin with—she worked with criminals, looked at them as her family. She was a criminal herself. Someone like her given Kira's power, the odds she or anyone like her would use it for anything but old grudges were slim.

"So?" L looked over at her. "What are your suspicions?"

"Less than they were when you first joined the investigation team," he said.

"I can't be sure if that's little enough suspicion or not," she said. "I may have to give you some sort of test."

"Such as?"

Katherine leaned back against her chair's backrest, staring up at the ceiling. This was her perfect opportunity, but did he truly trust her enough to tell her? The odds were very much against that. The bigger question was whether he believed the evidence she had was important enough. Even so, this was probably the best opportunity she would get to find out his real name. She couldn't save Al, she probably wouldn't be able to save Pat or Don either. However, she could keep the remaining members of the investigation team alive. Even if it wasn't now, she _would_ find out L's real name somehow.

This was it, the best opportunity she had. She turned her head to look at him. "Your real name."

L frowned. Of all the ways she could have made her seem a _more_ likely suspect, this one took the cake, metaphorically speaking. There wasn't a flicker of anything on her face, however. No emotion—she was only looking to see his exact reaction to the suggestion. Did she want his name because it would be the perfect proof that he trusted her, or because she truly was Kira and intended to use it to kill him? The odds of the latter, even given the circumstances, still seemed slim based on the sort of person she was. Even so…

"First," he said, "what sort of evidence do you have?"

"I can show you how he kills." Making herself more suspicious by the second…. "And I can also show you how I know he's Kira. I can't tell you anything any more specific until I have insurance that you trust me. I won't be able to trust you otherwise."

L frowned. It would be impossible to get this evidence without giving her his name in return, and from the sounds of it… this was exactly what Al had refused to tell him, and perhaps with good reason—he had not met Al in person, and therefore couldn't be shown the evidence, only hear about it. Words proved nothing. Physical evidence, however, was undeniable. If Katherine had physical evidence, then would giving up his name truly be worth it? It was something both he and others guarded with their lives in any of his cases, and it required more guarding than ever in the Kira case. How could a suspect be trusted with his name?

"You could be bluffing."

"I could," she agreed. "That's where the whole trust thing comes in."

"Only an idiot would trust a person they know nothing about," L said.

Katherine couldn't read anything in his tone, but nodded in agreement no less. "I just can't tell you anything you'd be able to prove. I don't have a real identity that I know of, that anyone knows of. I was probably born outside of a hospital, in Newmarket-on-Fergus, a town in County Clare, it's just south of the first murder that took place in that case. I lived at the orphanage there, I don't know how I got there, I'd been there for as long as I could remember, and I'd known Al for as long as I could remember. Pretty rundown place, I wasn't the only one who they never found any paperwork on, definitely not the only one they never bothered to fill any out over. I hated it there, left when I was fourteen when they threatened to send me away to an orphanage in Britain to get me away from Al and Pat and Don—Al was already off chasing that murderer by that time. The three of us moved across the country to Trim, got a house there, didn't tell him until after the fact. I can't prove any of it, either, since I don't have an identity for you to use to trace me. I'll understand if you don't trust me, but you have to understand that I can't give you my information unless you do."

She watched him, the thoughtful look on his face as he bit his thumbnail. She was hopeful that this would work, but she couldn't give him any incentive to tell her without telling him about the death note she had, which would ruin her scheme for getting his name. Though it still seemed unlikely, the look of contemplation he was currently wearing gave her some hope.

"It's L Lawliet."

Her eyes widened—she hadn't been expecting that so suddenly, not without at least a few more questions. But regardless, she had precisely what she needed. She picked up her bag from next to the chair she was in and fished through it, pulling out the seemingly plain black notebook, a pen, and a lighter, before dropping the bag back on the floor and standing. She ripped a page out of the notebook and dropped it on the table in front of their chairs before sitting on her knees in front of it. She placed the paper on the table and, lighting her lighter with her left hand rather clumsily, wrote down his name. She picked it up and crumbled it into a ball as soon as it was written, dropping it on a small, now empty plate on the table that had held a piece of cake a few minute ago—she held the flame to it and watched it catch before pulling the lighter away and blowing it out. She stuffed it in her pocket, picked up the notebook, and tossed it to L.

"Pretty plain," she said, watching him examine it—front, back, inside, quickly flipping through pages, "isn't it?" She picked up the remote and stood in front of the television, rewound the tape back to where Misa was still in the diner, and paused it. "The notebook in and of itself doesn't seem very spectacular. It's what it does that's unbelievable."

L continued examining it doubtfully as she stepped out of the way of the television. Just a notebook, a plain black notebook, and what had that paper burning been, exactly? He blinked, looking up at Katherine. She sighed.

"I wasn't rewinding the tape for my own entertainment," she said, pointing at the screen. He looked.

His eyes widened, which was quite a feat, considering how owlish they already were. "Sh… shini…?"

"-gami," Katherine finished for him. "And you can't deny that you didn't see it a few minutes ago. The notebook is why." He looked down at it again, before looking back up at the television screen, at the beast that had so suddenly appeared behind Amane. "That notebook is known as a 'death note.' This one is different in a few ways from the ones Light and Misa most likely have. Most death notes, you pick it up from the ground and you can see the Shinigami bound to that notebook, no others. This notebook allows you to see all Shinigami. Most death notes can only kill, doing nothing for the user. This notebook will add a year to your life for each you kill, and take a year away should you choose to save a person. This is all because it belonged to the king of the Shinigami realm.

"He had sent a trusted Shinigami out on a sort of mission with it, I don't know the exact details, and they accidentally dropped it. As soon as any death note touches human ground, it belongs to that world. It's no big deal since the King can just make himself a new one, but it's still a nuisance. The Shinigami who told me about it was actually the one with Misa now. Rem." She looked over at L. "When Light comes here tomorrow, you'll see his. Neither the Shinigami or Light will have any idea that you can see it, just do your best to act like you can't."

L looked from the death note, back to Katherine, to the television screen where Amane and the Shinigami were depicted, letting all of this sink in. As little as he liked to admit it… Al had been correct. There would be virtually no way for him to prove that Kira was killing people if his weapon of choice was a _notebook_, of all things.

He looked at Katherine again. "Then your Shinigami is… their leader."

"Yeah," she said with a sigh, sitting on the coffee table and frowning. "Which means I really _don't_ have one. I guess the one who dropped it might have been it, but the king ended up killing him as a penalty _for_ dropping it, according to Rem. From what I've heard about the king, he seems like a stupid old fart anyway, so I guess I should be grateful."

He looked at the notebook. "Have you 'saved' anyone?"

She nodded. "You saw that just now," she said, nodding down at the plate next to her. It now held the ashes of the sheet from the death note she had burned. "That means you have been. You can't be killed by any death note. Neither can anyone else on the team. I… I didn't do it until after what happened to Ukita-san. I was afraid to until that. It's not like you can actually feel it when you lose a year of your life, so it's easier to do if you're not thinking about that."

"What about your people?"

She looked down at her knees. "I think you already know the answer to that. Al wouldn't give me his name when I asked him for it, especially not after I told him about the notebook and that it would take away from my life. Don and Pat… they still don't know about it. Pat's disabled the cameras and the bugs and they won't be putting any more up, so they still don't know now. I'm going to tell them about it the next time I see them, but odds are I won't have it with me by then."

"You… won't?"

"Well… it depends."

She knew she couldn't hold onto it for any longer. After Al, after she had ended up attacking Light earlier when she thought she would be safe to come back out into the main room, she just couldn't. She would be too tempted by it, and if Light was to die of a heart attack, everyone would suspect her immediately, and consequently suspect that she was either Kira or the second Kira. That couldn't happen.

"I'm afraid of… what it might make me do," she said. "I wouldn't trust many people with something like this, I don't even trust myself with it. I haven't since I decided to keep it when I could have just forfeited it. I'm not going to transfer ownership, but… I'd like you to hold onto it, if you could. I'm sure you understand that my life is bound to that notebook. As long as it stays in my ownership, it's me that it will affect ultimately. If you were to save anyone with it, that's a year off my life. You can look at it as insurance that I intend to see this investigation out until the end now."

L frowned. She hadn't taken her eyes off of her knees yet, but if she _was_ lying about any of this, she was doing quite a good job of it. If she had anything to do with Kira, she wouldn't have given up something like this notebook just for the sake of avoiding suspicion. It also definitely wouldn't be a good thing for her to kill Light with it, which would no doubt happen if she held onto it. Given her suspicions of Light, and how much she seemed to care about her friends, that would undoubtedly be what would happen if she kept it in her possession. He would need to be careful with it if it was to be in his possession. For Kira to find something like this would mean her death—if she had no name, then this was apparently the only death note capable of killing her, as long as she was its "owner," as she had put it.

"Please." L looked up from the notebook. "I can't keep it. This is the only way to ensure that Light won't die before he can be fairly convicted. I know it's him, I know he killed Al, and… I don't want to give in to this. Light did this to try to weaken my will and I'm not going to let it. I want him caught more than ever, I want to see that he faces the justice he's trying himself to overthrow. I don't want to kill him, but I wouldn't be able to stop myself. Please keep it for me," she said, finally looking up. "I doubt you'd ever be compelled to use it for anything."

She waited for him to show some sort of reaction. He couldn't spend forever thinking about whether or not he should accept. After a few long minutes, staring down at the notebook again, he nodded. "I will."

He was quite alarmed when she stood from the coffee table and bent down at the side of his chair to loop her arms around his neck.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

"Y… you're welcome."

She let go and moved back over to the other chair and sat down, leaving L to continue staring down at the notebook, still shocked and even more confused than before.

* * *

_Aaaaand the first signs of L x OC in this fic start to show themselves. -laughs evilly-_

_Aaaaanyway, your word of the day is KAZOOIE!~_

_:3_

_On that bombshell, I's off to go take a shower and get some sleep because I'M ACTUALLY GETTING OUT OF THE HOUSE TOMORROW OMFG. You have no idea how happy I am. None.  
_


	13. Aftermath

_AHHHHHHHHHHHH I'm baaaaaaaaack! You have **Sparanda** to thank for this, as I ended up working on this chapter in exchange for a oneshot he did for one of his fics. And... I still took a whole month to upload it. Sorry!_

_I really need to get back to updating my fics regularly again D'x_

_SasoLOVE111: Yep, he most certainly can! Haha, it is indeed an awesome word._

_Spar: I don't think I ever actually answered that question. So, let me answer it with another question: Do you really think she could write Light's name on a page of her Death Note and then NOT spend the whole 40 seconds afterward debating whether or not to burn it?_

_yvonna: And then I suddenly sucked at updating Dx I'm so so sorry! I try to work a bit more diligently on this now and hopefully not get sidetracked..._

_Apathetical: Sorry for not making it five really quick updates. I had this chapter sitting on my computer nearly done for quite a long time and didn't get around to finishing it until... now. I suck. :(_

_ThreeBooksInTheFire: Actually, you haven't changed your screenname since the last time you reviewed the old TKN. And I never did actually say it was a card-sliding door; it had been so long since I had been to a hotel at the time that the last one I had been to was a regular key. I honestly didn't know about card sliding doors. So... yeah. I likely will leave that out simply because of the fact that I now know. :S I always felt like an idiot after writing that chapter._

_XxMichyBabyxX: Thanks! And sorry it took so long for the update..._

_SWEETSAPPHIRE0: Sorry for taking so long to update :(_

_FleurSuoh: Thanks! :D It took a while, but yeah, here's the next one!_

_XXBlackfireXX: Thanks, glad you've enjoyed it!_

_WildTiger777: Thanks muchly! Sorry you had to wait for so long for it._

_jennyz: Haha, only a little xD_

_Story stuff now..._

_**Disclaimer**: I don't own Death Note. Tis a sad thing, but I don't._

_**Warnings**: Er... something?_

_**Quotey-ma-thing**:  
"I dunno," Don said, sighing. "If death notes exist, then why not some other ridiculous spiritual weapon? Why not a fatality pen? Or a life eraser? Hell, we might be dealing with an entire lethal stationery set."_

_"You forgot the stapler of doom and dismay,"_

* * *

The instant she stepped through the back door and turned around to hang up her keys, Katherine found herself being squeezed nearly to death.

It had been only a few hours earlier that she had managed to secure a day off. It would be precisely a day—she had left the hotel at around four in the morning and would return there at the same time. They had agreed not to make her wear a bug, which had surprised her, but she supposed they would probably all be rather careful around her after the night before when, had she been given the chance, she probably would have killed Light.

All in all, it was a good thing she wasn't wearing a bug. This was both because she had every intention of telling Pat and Don about death notes today, and because the bug would probably be about as crushed as her ribs now were, had she been wearing one.

"You're back!"

Gritting her teeth in slight pain, she managed to take a breath. "Yes—now let—go—can't _breathe_!" She was released and stumbled into the door to catch her breath.

"Well, tha's what you get for smoking all those cigarettes, innit?"

Grumbling, she walked past Pat, purposefully stepping on his foot before entering the kitchen. She grinned as she opened the fridge at the other side of the kitchen upon hearing him swear, his cheerful disposition broken for the moment. "_Dammit_—break half my fecking toes, why don't ya!"

"I only meant to break one, honestly," she replied innocently, examining the bottom shelf of the fridge, stocked mostly of various varieties of alcohol. It was quite a wonder no one in this house had died of alcohol poisoning yet. She frowned at it momentarily before taking a bottle of beer.

"Yeah, sure," he said disbelievingly. "So what're ya doing back here?"

She looked over at him, closing the fridge. "Am I not allowed to come visit occasionally?" She frowned. "Figured Don would have said something…"

Pat shrugged. "I just got back in a little while ago. I figured somethin' was up given he's passed out on the sofa instead of 'is room."

"I thought you'd been back already," she said, puzzled. "Didn't you get disconnect the cameras?"

"Ended up leaving again for a bit."

Katherine frowned at him for a moment longer before crossing to the other side of the kitchen to retrieve the bottle opener from the silverware drawer and wrench the top off of her beer. It was easy enough to see past Pat's cheerful disposition, see that he was purposely skirting the subject of Al. From what Don had told her, he hadn't taken it very well at all. She couldn't help but wondering if he even knew what had happened yet, if he had spoken with Don since he had left the voicemail on his phone hours before now.

She started to leave the kitchen, tossing the bottle top in the trashcan at the doorway to the laundry room, and heard Pat follow her. "How long're you planning on staying?"

"Only a day," she said. "It was hard enough getting the entire team to agree to that."

"They're still suspicious?" She shrugged.

"Al didn't die of a heart attack," she said, "which means that until _we_ find some evidence of our own, it's not going to be viewed as Kira's doing. I know Don spent a good bit of time trying to figure out something about the note, did he find anythin'?"

"Dunno," he said, somewhat evasively. Katherine stopped at the edge of the dining room and turned, raising an eyebrow at him. "We didn't talk much when I was back earlier."

She sighed, shaking her head. "Then you're going to have a bit of catching up to do."

"Wh—do we really need to?" he asked uncomfortably, looking off to the side a bit.

Katherine leaned back against the doorframe between the dining room and den. "It's evidence, and we're going to need to talk about it while we're all here. If they only plan on giving me a day off when one of you dies, then I hope I won't be getting very many more."

"Well… wh… what if it isn't?" Katherine blinked at him, not grasping precisely what he meant. "Evidence," he said. "I mean, he knew Kira was after him, what if… and since Kira only kills with heart attacks, then… maybe it wasn't Kira."

"I don't like what you're implying," Katherine said quietly. "We don't _know_ that Kira can't kill by other means."

"How would he have even known who Al was? There wouldn't be any reason for him to kill by any means besides heart attack, right?"

"This is why we all need to discuss it, to—"

"It would've been Kira that drove him to do it, so yeah, it was Kira in a way, but directly? I just… the way it happened, it doesn't make any sense. I'm sure that you realize that."

She shook her head. "You don't understand. Y—you just don't, that's not somethin' Al would have ever done, I know it isn't, I—"

"We've been coming to nothing but dead ends on Kira since—"

"He _didn't_—!"

"—since we _started_," he continued over her, "so there's no reason Kira would have seen any of us as a threat to him."

"Al _didn't_ kill himself, it was Kira!" she shouted back indignantly, dropping her bag on the floor. "If you would just agree to bloody _discuss_ it for a bit, then I might be able to explain _why—_"

"Can't you two go argue outside?" The two of them faltered in their fight at this and looked into the living room at the sound of the irate voice, at the shadow of a figure laying across the sofa in the darkened living room. "I'm trying to sleep here and you're not exactly helping my headache. So shut up or clear off."

Don, as Pat had said, was the figure lying on the sofa, had undoubtedly passed out there a few hours earlier, only to be woken up by arguing. It was probably the very last thing he had wanted to wake up to—Katherine grimaced and looked away from the living room. It didn't seem, however, that Pat had any intention of letting things go that easily.

"I've got as much right to be in this house as you do."

"I think I've got just a little bit more at the moment." Katherine looked over as he was sitting up to look over at Pat—glare, rather. "You've been out all afternoon an' most of the night while I was stuck here cleaning brains off of a wall. So, if you don't mind quieting it down over there?"

"Oh, no." Katherine looked at Pat as he scoffed, crossing his arms and looking indignant. "No bloody way you're making _me_ feel guilty about this."

"I'm not entirely sure I like your tone."

"You were here when it happened, why didn't you stop him?" Don shook his head in disbelief and lay back down on the sofa. "Well?"

"Do I _really_ need to answer that?" The silence that responded obviously meant that he did. "You think I didn't try? I got the gun away from him and he got it back. It's that simple. You obviously think this had nothing to do with Kira, so I guess it is my fault from your standing."

Katherine finally decided to cut in here. "That's why we _need_ to discuss this—"

Don laughed, cutting her off. "Good luck getting him to discuss anything, I couldn't get him to say two words when he was here earlier."

"All I'm saying," Pat said, "is that Kira had no way of knowing who Al was—and we don't even have any proof he can kill any other way besides heart attacks. That bloke on the bus, sure, but that's not exactly solid evidence, that's just guessing." He glared off into the kitchen. "Maybe it was caused by Kira, because he knew Kira was going to kill him, but… no one else is going to believe us if we say it was Kira."

"That's _why_ we have to discuss this," Katherine repeated, perturbed. "Kira did things like this so we'd react like this, he wanted to catch us off guard and tear us apart, and it's _working_. If someone on the investigation team is Kira, and Kira can manipulate death, then that would prove it."

"But we can't prove _that_," Don said from the sofa. "That letter didn't have a damn thing. If Kira did this, he did one hell of a job on it. Unfortunately, Pat's right. We can't prove if Kira is on the investigation team or not. And even if he was, the only person who would know enough about Al to put his name or his face to _us_ would be L. Are we saying L's Kira?" Don tilted his head back to look at her. "Because if that's the case, then we're going to have a lot of starting over to do."

"I'm saying that Yagami Light is Kira," she replied, leaning against the double doorframe between the living and dining rooms. "And I'm saying that he knew. If it's anyone's fault Al is dead… then it's mine."

"What are you talking about?" Don said impatiently, shaking his head.

"I told Light about who we were working for." At this, Don sat up again and looked at her in disbelief. "It wasn't—Don't look at me like that, it wasn't anything I thought he could use! I was just… taunting him, I guess, I never thought…" She gritted her teeth and looked off at the window in the dining room across from the doorway. "It was when the task force was working on their own Kira video in order to out the second Kira."

"Why would you mention _anything_ about—"

"I told you, I didn't think it was anything he could use against us, I—I never thought Al would get himself seen, much less _photographed_." She crossed her arms, her pulse pounding in her ears. "I'm not trying to justify it, I know it's my fault. But it happened, and it could be damning for Light, since we should have it on tape."

* * *

She had definitely spoken to Light about Al, while Light was writing out that script for the Kira video. It had been her to tell him that her "boss" was the one criminal, the one suspect L had never caught, and this had undoubtedly been mentioned in the broadcast featuring his photograph and name. That would have been more or less definitive proof for Light, for _Kira_ that Al was the person she was working for. Katherine stared down at the near full bottle of beer in her shaking hands as she explained this to Pat and Don from the armchair in the living room, didn't look up as she finished.

The three of them were silent for a long moment.

"Then…" She glanced at Pat, sitting atop the coffee table in the middle of the room. "The only two people who knew enough about Al to kill him were L and Light, if he saw one of the broadcasts with the name and photograph." Katherine nodded.

"And L already knew his name and face. If L were Kira, he could have killed Al right off the bat."

"Yagami Light was the only person who could have killed him," Don said, sighing. "If the second Kira had done it, he wouldn't have bothered with anything fancy. To him, Al would have been just another criminal. Just another heart attack."

"What is there saying that Kira _can_ do anything but heart attacks?" Pat said—though less skeptically now than earlier. "There's the bus, but… and in both those cases, it would _have_ to be Light. We blame him, it's going to look like we're just looking for a scapegoat to say that Al didn't kill himself out of fear of Kira. W—we know he wouldn't have, but no one else would."

"We haven't got evidence," Don agreed. "That's our problem. The letter just made it look more genuine. The only problem was it mentioned no names, but that's easily dismissible by anyone who didn't know Al… and no one but us knew him. And… I'm the only witness." He slouched back against the back of the sofa, staring up at the ceiling, a cigarette hanging off the corner of his mouth. He sighed out a puff of smoke. "And I could swear up and down in front of a judge that I saw him snap out of it when I got the gun away from him and it wouldn't help."

"I don't think it would help your case that you've made a career out of fooling people, either," Katherine said, still staring down the neck of her bottle.

"No, not exactly. Which means that even with that tape of you talking to Light, we haven't got anything to show it was him. We can only use that as supporting evidence if we ever find anything definitive." Don seemed to hesitate for a moment, then continued. "Did Al ever mention anything to either of you what Kira might be killing with?"

"No, how would he have known?" Pat asked, eyebrows raised. "That seems…"

"The second Kira can supposedly kill someone just by glancing at them—or maybe know their name by glancing at them. Think about the murders back in Ireland." He wondered if they would have nearly as difficult a time making the connections as he had. "The killer knew our names, if he wasn't lying. But… how could he have known them? Ours as well as Al's. And according to Al, he wasn't lying. And… in both cases, it's been apparently one person controlling a series of impossible deaths. In Ireland, it was animal attacks. Here, it's heart attacks. In both cases, that one person wanted the public to know that there was a single person behind it—and that he could strike anywhere, at any time. Like a monster, or a vengeful god, depending on how you look at it."

"I dunno." Pat shook his head, leaning forward and resting his chin against his palm, his elbow against his knee. "Maybe. It still seems like kind of a stretch unless we know about it. Unless… when the second Kira mentioned 'gods of death'… you don't think he was being serious?" Pat looked at Don. "Because if we're seriously fighting against people with actual _gods_ on their side, then I'm for heading to the nearest pub and drinking all this away."

"Well, if there are Shinigami involved, then I don't think they're too strongly involved," Don said. Telling them about death notes now just seemed to be too far of a stretch. If either of them came to a conclusion close enough to it on their own, then maybe, but not until then. Don was still having a hard time believing it himself, even if it did all somehow seem to make perfect sense. "If there is anything like that, it's more likely that Kira and the second Kira their gained power from them—"

"Death notes." The rest of Don's sentence stumbled off the edge of coherent thought as he heard those words spoken aloud again. "How long have you known about them?"

He looked at Katherine. "W… well, after Al was spotted, he told me about them."

"So he knew for a fact that one was involved in the murders he was framed for, I take it."

Looking back and forth between the two of them, Pat blinked rapidly, quite obviously still lost somewhere on the possibility of actual gods being involved in all of this. After a long moment of silence in which nothing was explained, he shook his head. "I'm sorry, death _what_?"

"Notes," Don said. "They… in human hands, they're probably the worst weapon anyone could ever have, and it's probably what Kira and the second Kira are using."

"There's no 'probably' about it," Katherine said, grimacing down at the bottle in her hands as visions of Light's Shinigami and Rem played in her mind. "It's definitely what they're using. It couldn't be anything else."

"I dunno," Don said, sighing. "If death notes exist, then why not some other ridiculous spiritual weapon? Why not a fatality pen? Or a life eraser? Hell, we might be dealing with an entire lethal stationery set."

"You forgot the stapler of doom and dismay," Pat informed him.

Don only scoffed as he dropped his diminished cigarette into an empty glass on the table. "This is absolutely _ridiculous_. A notebook of death. No, _two_ notebooks of death."

"Then you don't believe it?"

"Well, it… sort of doesn't make much sense," Pat said, frowning at Katherine.

"You'd have to be pretty mad to believe it…" Setting the now empty Guinness bottle on the table rather hard, he sighed in annoyance. "I think I crossed 'pretty mad' round two years ago, maybe three. But Al seemed… pretty sure about this, at least, and he was probably the sanest person I've ever met. These death notes are the closest thing to a lead we have. We might 's well follow it for now. At least until there's something else."

Katherine nodded in agreement—Pat, however, was still looking rather unconvinced, staring down at the bottle in his hands and shaking his head. "This still seems really bloody weird…"

"If you write a name in a death note, that person dies of a heart attack." He looked up at this. "It can control cause and circumstances of death, but if you just write the name, then the person dies of a heart attack. This would mean that the guy on the bus back in December probably had to do with Kira. It would mean that Kira used him for something and wanted him dead without anyone knowing it was him who killed him. We know Raye Penber was on that bus, and that it was Light he was following at the time, which means Light was probably on that bus himself. I think it seems a little too weird to be coincidence."

"The article on that… the bloke was yelling about a monster at the back of the bus before he ran off and got hit, right?" Pat asked slowly. "What was his name, Naka…"

"Nakakanji?" Don said uncertainly.

Pat shook his head and stood up and walked off into the next room. He returned a moment later with the Toshiba laptop from the monitor room and took his seat on the coffee table again, flipping it open. A few minutes passed quietly before he said, quite decisively, "Nakaokaji. Nakaokaji Matsushiro. This article says he went to the back of the bus and ended up yelling about a monster being there and unloaded his revolver into where he thought the monster was, ended up blowing out the back window of the bus."

"Maybe it was a Shinigami," Don said with a laugh.

"Actually…" Pat looked up from the screen of the laptop, between Don and Katherine. "How does the whole Shinigami thing work?"

"Shinigami drops the notebook in our world, a human picks it up and officially becomes the owner of that death note," Katherine said. "They can see the Shinigami that death note belongs to. Anyone else who touches the notebook can see it, too."

"Then… maybe he did see one." He looked back down at the screen. "'One witness says Nakaokaji picked up a scrap of paper from the floor just before proclaiming he saw this 'monster' and shooting out the back window of the bus.' Would he have been able to see the Shinigami if it was just a piece of paper from a death note…?"

"But even then…" Katherine frowned. "It doesn't add up to Kira having killed him. It seems like Light would have just dropped a piece of the death note to distract the guy from hijacking the bus."

Don shook his head. "He could have had it planned out in the death note before then," he disagreed. "Penber was an FBI agent, he would have been out to stop the guy on pure instinct—Penber probably would have been sitting directly behind Light, who could have used this to get his identity."

"Then wrote out Penber's death so Penber would get him the names of the other agents investigating Kira before dying?" Pat said, looking back up from the computer again.

"So he could kill all of them at the same time and make everyone being investigated a suspect, instead of just the people Penber was investigating," Katherine offered.

"Then if it was Penber that was used," Pat said slowly, "Light has to be Kira. And since Light's the only person who would have known who Al was well enough to kill him once he learned his name from that news broadcast…"

The three of them remained silent as this conclusion was reached; it was almost a bit frightening how the death note theory seemed to make everything fall into place so simply, so gracefully—though, in reality, it was hardly a theory. It was the truth of the matter. Kira had a death note, the second Kira had a death note, and both were using them for the same means. It would be nigh impossible to explain to Don or Pat the reality of this and expect them to believe her without a doubt. True it was, she had come back for a day hoping to explain her own death note to them, that she had had one all along, that she could keep them from being killed where Al had refused the offer for the relatively small price she would have to pay for it—but she couldn't bring herself to open the subject.

It was her weapon if Don and Pat had refused to believe the death note theory, but Don already knew about them, and Pat didn't seem unconvinced, to say the least. Was there any need to bring it up when she was more than certain they would answer in the same manner as Al to her offer? The investigation team would be plenty safe enough, even L needn't worry over being killed by Kira or any other's death note. No; it was only the few people—or couple now—whose lives she cared about the most that she had to worry about dying.

If it was an option, if there was even the slightest possibility, then she had to try.

"I…" They looked over at her. "I tried to help him."

"Al?" Don shook his head. "There wasn't really anything…"

"There _was_, but he downright refused it." She closed her eyes. "I—I don't know about death notes because Al told me about them. I know about them because… I have one."

* * *

_That's all for now! Yay semi-cliffhangers? Sure, yay._

_Aaaaaand on that bombshell, I'm-_

_HA got you. You should have seen the look on your face. You thought I'd forgotten!_

_The word of the day is frankenputer. It is a word I have come up with to describe my brother's computer, which is more or less just a shell of the computer that it was when he bought it, because he has been adding so much stuff from other computers to it to make it better. And stronger. And indeed, faster._

_And on this real bombshell, I'm off.  
_


	14. Gone

_So I failed to update quickly. I finished the majority of this chapter shortly after uploading the previous one... but the last scene was extremely, extremely difficult for me to write. It took quite a bit of debating as to whether or not I even wanted to include it, but it's... going to be important regarding the romance side of the story. -coughcough- I'll leave it at that until you read it._

_Sorry if some of the usernames aren't underlined; the fanfiction'dot'net editor is being stupid at me._

_yvonna__: Erm... hopefully updates will start coming quickly again now that I'm past this chapter. I tend to stall and procrastinate on difficult chapters Dx_

_Wydra-and-MashumelloKage__: Don't worry, I haven't left! I've worked much too hard on this story to ever abandon it! I might take a while on the chapters sometimes, but rest assured that it will never be abandoned. Aaaaah I wish I could find some way to include them, but because of the timeline this is on it'd be rather difficult :( B's already dead at this point, and Mello and Near and Matt are safely tucked away at the orphanage. They're all quite prominent in my Mellow Out_ _series, though; I had to have something with them since this project didn't include them! You're quite welcome, and thank you for reviewing :D_

_randomgurl__: Here's your update :D A little late, but rest assured that no matter how long I take to update, I always will update!_

_waterpeach4__: I haven't read it, actually, but yeah, I've been asked that before. It was a crazy coincidence that I was informed of in another review, and it's ended up tying into how she chose her name in the first place in my OCs' histories xD I'm positive she will get a chance to speak with Ryuk... I couldn't pass up that sort of opportunity. I'll have to figure out exactly when, but it's going to have to happen at some point. Hehe, thanks! I do my best to keep the other characters as in character as I can; I really respect Ohba's skills in characterization. He's been a major influence on me in that area, and I'd feel I was insulting him if I didn't give my all in getting his characters as in-character as I possibly could._

_xxyangxx2006__: I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far :D I'd like to advise you not to read the original, though, unless you'd really like an idea of just how horribly I used to suck at this sort of thing xD I did leave it up so people could read over it and offer suggestions if they wished to, though, so it's entirely up to you. _

_lonewolfgirl-sademo588__: Thanks! ... and I hope you don't mind if I take that suggestion to heart. I'll credit you for it entirely xD I agree that would be an amazing opener._

_fezzesandbowtiesarecool: First and foremost, I love your penname :) Second, thanks! :D It's definitely going to be continued, and definitely finished. I've put too much work into this one to discontinue it at any point._

_**Disclaimer**__: I don't own Death Note, and the opening line of this chapter is also credited to __lonewolfgirl-sademo588__, because that suggestion was just far too amusing to turn down._

_**Warnings**__: Errrr you may kill me?_

_**Quoteyfier:**_**  
**_"Hmm." He tucked his hands behind his head, frowning thoughtfully. "He strikes me as a bit of a loony himself, honestly. Al may not have been quite on that level, but at least all his marbles were still in place. I'm not against him, but I'm still wary of him. Though honestly that incident with the tire iron could be to blame, in which case I pity the poor bloke and hope we don't get sued or something for brain damaging the world's greatest detective…"_

_"Just add it to your list of preexisting felonies. And from working with him, I believe his head is on pretty straight. He's a little eccentric, but it's also his first time working in person with anyone aside from Watari." Don only sighed in response. "Stop being crabby. After hitting him over the head with a tire iron and planting cameras all over his hotel rooms, we should count ourselves lucky he hasn't had us all detained."_

* * *

"YOU WHAT?" Don and Pat yelled in unison.

Katherine flinched. Disbelief, suspicion, anger—she suspected the two of them to cycle through all of these as she explained when and how she had retrieved her own death note, why she had decided to keep the murderous thing. Disbelief, of course, would be the first, if only for the fact that the two of them—Pat particularly—were still in disbelief that these notebooks of death existed.

After a silent moment, Pat blinked, and spoke uncertainly, reiterating his previous outburst. "You have one… of what, exactly?"

"A death note."

"And why have we never heard about this before?" And of course, it was Don who jumped immediately to suspicion. "You've had a way to save us all from being killed by Kira and you haven't bothered to say a damn thing about it?"

"You wouldn't have believed me until now. And you wouldn't have let me prove it was a death note. None of you, especially not Al, would have let me kill anyone, and I wouldn't have wanted to anyway."

"You're supposed to be able to see the Shinigami attached to it, though…" Pat looked from Katherine to a bit behind her, a bit off to the side, as though he wondered if he might catch a glimpse of some spook hovering around her. "If you touch the notebook. Then wouldn't we have just had to do that?"

"Well, that's the thing, really…" All she could do was tell it from the beginning. "Was a few years back, you were off in Dublin for a week or two for some mad sort of heist," she said to Pat. "I was at the house in Trim by myself that morning, guess Don had spent the night in some sleazy motel." She received an eye roll for this from the accused party, but went on without pause. "I went out to check the mail, found a few days' worth of it stuffed into the mailbox. I spotted something in the front garden while I was taking it in and just went over to see what it was. It looked like just a plain black notebook, maybe someone's address book. I picked it up and took it inside with the mail and looked at it a bit closer. The words 'death note' were on the front cover in white letters. I opened it and found names written inside of it. Only a few. Between the title on the front of the thing and the names inside it, I was a little suspicious. I looked up the names on the internet and it turned out that the few names I found, the people had died of heart attacks.

"I dropped it in my room after that and stayed in the sitting room and tried to put it away from my mind with a little TV and ended up dozing off. I woke up and found a monster hovering next to me. It told me the notebook belonged to the King of Death, but that it was mine since I had picked it up. I could kill with it or save lives with it, or I could give it up. I don't know why I kept it." She looked down at her knees. "Maybe I thought I could use it to get rid of the bastard that was framing Al with all those murders. Maybe…" The parents she had never known, that had abandoned her at infancy flashed in her mind, and she pushed them out immediately. That had indeed been one thought on her mind then. "I don't know. I just know that I did keep it, and I spent the past couple years trying to convince myself that the 'death god' I met had just been a weird dream."

"So…" Pat looked a little apprehensive, "it's… _not_ here now, right? The… god-thing." Katherine shook her head.

"Neither of them?" She looked over at Don. "The messenger or the 'King?'"

Again, she shook her head. "Apparently the King never really leaves their realm. He just sends out others to do errands for him when necessary. The Shinigami running the errand just dropped the King's notebook. I guess that one would have ended up being my Shinigami, but he got the death sentence for losing the notebook in the first place."

"And," Don went on, "the only difference from Kira's notebook would be its ability to save lives?"

"Well, from the Shinigami side, yeah. But on the human side, there's also the benefit that anyone who touches it can see any Shinigami in our world. There aren't that many of them. But there's definitely one following Light. I think it's a little more than coincidence that the main suspect of the Kira case has a Shinigami following him around making sarcastic comments on a regular basis about how Light is Kira." She sighed. "Problem being that the testimony of a Shinigami probably wouldn't hold up in court."

"So I guess the Shinigami doesn't realize anyone but Light can see it, right?" Pat said.

"Actually…" She laughed, humorlessly, nervously. "He and Light _might_ both know."

It really wasn't much of a surprise that Don and Pat both looked horrorstruck. Had she thought ahead at all, about the fact that she might have to explain all of this to them one day in the future, perhaps before the Kira case was even over, then she might have never done it in the first place. But as it was, it made Light a little more vulnerable, that he knew at least one person that he couldn't affect with his death note was working against him, a person that could see and hear his Shinigami—a person without a name.

"For fuck's sake—what the—what were you _thinkin'_? You—for the love of—dammit, I need another beer…"

"Have mine." Katherine sat forward in her armchair and held out her own bottle before Don could take more than a couple steps toward the kitchen. "I don't think I could stomach anything other than water right now." It was snatched from her hand a moment later, and set on the coffee table quite hard as Don sat down on the sofa again, a hand covering his face. "Can I explain or are you just going to—?"

"What good did you think it would do us for Kira to know that you know who he is?"

"And you're just going to," she grumbled, sinking back into her armchair.

"You _do_ realize he kills criminals." He was glaring around his fingers now. "Con artists. Identity thieves. Burglars. I'm sure you know the type." The hand left his face to pick up the bottle from the table now, and Katherine took the opportunity to speak when he was taking a drink.

"I—I wanted to make him get a bit reckless. Slip up. Get desperate because he knew someone he couldn't kill was working against him. We'd already looked at Yagami as a suspect, and when I saw the Shinigami, it was the only thing I could think of."

"We'd already looked at Yagami," Don repeated slowly, setting the bottle down, "so you already knew he was at genius level IQ. Did you really think he was going to fight recklessness with more recklessness?"

"What about the Lind L. Tailor incident?" she said—even she knew it was a weak attempt at justification. "And killing the FBI agents? If he had left them alone, odds are that all the agents would have reported back with nothing unusual. It proves that he's capable of being a little rash occasionally. Especially when he thinks he's being threatened. But he can't kill me, so I thought I might be able to distract him into thinking of ways to kill me and he might let his guard down again enough to give us another clue—"

"And you conveniently forgot that you weren't working alone in trying to get rid of Kira?" That cut into her like a knife, and her eyes averted to her knees immediately. "You didn't consider he might use others if he couldn't kill you? Like, oh, I don't know, maybe _Al_?" She flinched, feeling the knife stab that time. "Of course, Kira couldn't kill any of us, he didn't know anything about us. He didn't know you weren't working alone—until you mentioned that you were working for the most wanted serial murder suspect in all of Ireland, right?" The knife twisted this way and that, and she cringed, but didn't respond. She had already admitted that it was her fault, already said just that, in those words exactly, and there was hardly anything else she could do.

Don sighed when she failed to reply, and asked in equal exasperation, "So where's the bloody notebook right now, anyway?"

It was as though things weren't already bad enough for him. Unable to bring herself to look at him, she stared out the window, eyes closed. "I… I don't have it."

Silence rang around the room for a moment, broken by a heavy sigh across the room. "Why not?" Don asked levelly, though his patience was obviously not far from breaking. Katherine knew what he could be like when he was angry. A few times she had witnessed it, and only once had she been at the receiving end of it. She could only hope that this wouldn't turn into the second time.

"I didn't trust myself with it. Especially after Al… I—I knew if I had a means to kill Light, I'd do it, and then he'd never get what he deserved. The Kira investigation would keep going until it hit a dead end, and then it would go cold. Just like the bastard that framed Al. Light doesn't deserve the easy way out."

"So you gave up the notebook, I take it?"

"N… not exactly."

"Then where is it?" he asked again.

Just a glance at him told Katherine that he was already growing impatient. The point of no return had been reached. She could really only dig herself deeper into this hole now; there was no chance of climbing back out. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, "L has it." She continued over the swear she heard at the other side of the room. "I didn't want to bring it back here to show off. For one, I was tempted enough to kill Light right there in the hotel. For another, I was planning on telling you about everything tonight, and I know I wouldn't have been the only one tempted to get rid of Light the easy way. L is too determined to catch Kira for himself to kill him. He's really the only person we can trust with it."

"You can trust some detective that would probably have us all thrown in prison if it weren't for the Kira case better than us, then, yeah?"

"Don…"

"Then why're ya even still here?"

"Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't have killed Light if I'd given you the bloody book," she said, looking over at him finally. "I know you would have. You know you would have. That's the only reason I didn't bring it here, that's the only reason I left it with—"

"Yeah, with _L_. Why don't you just go crawl back to him and his task force? Not like you lot have any use for us now that our mastermind is gone, is it?"

"'You lot?' Do I look like a cop to you?"

"Not really, but it's obvious you trust them more than you do us—"

"I never said—!"

"But why wouldn't you? We've only been like family for eight bleedin' years, after all—"

"You know what?" she yelled over him, standing from her chair. "I think I'd _rather_ go back to them and be accused of being Kira than _this_."

"Then go on!" he yelled back, gesturing towards the door. "No one's feckin' stoppin' ya, go run back to your investigation team and see if they'll want you back when you can't even be a link between our side and theirs. Though with how much you seem to trust _L_, I guess maybe—"

Something slammed in the living room, on the coffee table, a fist that wasn't either of theirs, and Pat stood at the doorway between the sitting room and the kitchen a moment later. Katherine had nearly forgotten he was there, silent as he had been through everything. He certainly didn't look particularly thrilled, particularly happy with the turn their discussion had taken, fists clenched at his sides and jaw set. No…. Not Pat. Pat didn't get angry. He was their humor, their comic relief when things got too serious, when things got like _this_… but was there really any possibility of laughing this away? Don looked as though he had been shocked out of anger himself, and Katherine was frozen where she stood, waiting for the silence, the stillness to be broken.

"P…Pat, mate—?"

"No—" Pat looked between them, shook his head. "No. I don't want to hear a bloody _word_ from you two," he said, voice gradually rising, "and no one's going anywhere, so sit down!" he finished in a yell; Katherine nearly fell back into her chair in surprise. Sighing, he crossed his arms, looking away from them both, eyes on his feet. "Is this what it's going to be like without Al around? We know this's what Kira wants, yeah? To break us apart so he doesn't have as much to worry about. And you two're just pushing it right along, aren't ya? W—we don't—dammit, if we do this, we won't be _anything_. We need each other, we don't _have_ anyone else. Al's not here to hold us together anymore, so we're going to have to do it ourselves. You both need to just… just get over yourselves. I don't care whose fecking fault it is and neither should you two. It happened, and it's done. We can't bring him back, but we can at least _try_ to stick together for long enough to give Kira what he bloody well deserves.

"I'm…" Pat shook his head, and Katherine's eyes went straight to her knees when he finally looked up. "I'm going out. Don't know where, I'll call after a bit. If you two haven't sorted this out when I get back, then I'm done with you both."

A moment later, the front door slammed behind Katherine's chair. The two of them remained silent for quite some time, long enough to hear a taxi slow down in front of the little suburban house and drive off after a moment. It wasn't a minute later when Katherine stood and walked swiftly to the hallway, to the room that had been hers when she had been living here, and closed the door behind her.

Sure, she could reconcile with Don. There was no doubt about that in her mind. It just wasn't going to be possible for her that very moment, given she hardly felt capable of speaking. Face in her hands, she leaned back against the door. Al would have been able to fix all of this. There wasn't a single doubt in it; it was an inarguable _fact_. But Al wasn't there. Al was the reason for it, and he would never be there to fix it again. It was hitting her like a backhand across the jaw now, harder than ever. Al was gone. Gone, not coming back. She couldn't bring herself to even think of the "d" word right now.

Ears pounding, heart a throbbing lump in her throat, she slid down the door, wrapped her arms around her knees and declined her head. Her next breath came out as a strangled sob. This wasn't how she had planned for any of this to go; she almost wanted to go back to the hotel rather than face any of this for another moment. Though there were but a few hours left until sunrise, though the night had been near finished when she arrived, it was still turning into quite a long night rather quickly.

* * *

Somehow, Katherine had managed to make it to her bed by the time a few knocks came to her door, though she was by no means asleep. It might have been an hour later, maybe a half an hour—she wasn't sure. Nevertheless, she quieted instantly, wiping her eyes. She gave no sign that she had heard the knocker, but the door opened without her consent anyway. There was no need for her to look up; Pat hadn't gotten back yet, so it could have only been one person.

"Pat's in Aoyama. Said he'll be back an hour or so after daylight." Katherine tried to swallow the lump in her throat down, sniffed a little rather than breathe through her mouth and risk dissolving back into sobbing. Talking still felt beyond her. It was going to have to happen now, however; footsteps approached her bed slowly, and the bed sunk behind where she lay with her back to the door. "So… how're you doing?"

It was so ridiculous, so awkward an icebreaker that Katherine nearly scoffed—it only came out as another sob, however. Not wanting to leave it at that, she shot a glare over her shoulder at him. "D—d'you really need to ask?" She despised how choked her voice sounded, though she wasn't surprised by it.

Don did give a humorless laugh at this, though not scornful at all. "Suppose not," he said quietly. "I guess I should know what this is like."

Katherine sat up and turned around to look at him. He was only staring at the wall, mostly unmoving. "That so?" she said quietly. "Why?"

"I know how I felt when I found me mum dead in the alley behind Mac's. I don't imagine it's much different for you right now." He ran a hand back through his hair, and it landed heavily on the bed. With a sigh, he added quietly, "It's definitely not for me."

Frowning, Katherine moved along the bed and sat behind him. She sighed. "This is familiar." He glanced back at her, and she smiled wryly. "You make me cry and I have to comfort you. And I don't think I'm experiencing any déjà vu."

Another humorless laugh. "You don't have to. You could always just tell me how much of an arse I am and kick me out."

"Yet you know I won't." He was silent. Sighing, Katherine sat up straighter and looped her arms around his shoulders, resting her forehead against one. "I guess I still like you too much."

"Yeah…"

The silence, a not entirely comfortable one, rang around them for a few moments, drowning out the sounds of a few cars passing by on the suburban street in front of their postage stamp of a front lawn. There was no doubt in its reasoning. Katherine knew what was coming of this quiet, and sighed inwardly. Of course, part of her had expected this, even this soon. Getting angry about how soon it was wouldn't be of any help; this talk was going to happen eventually, and better sooner than later. When Don finally sighed, she braced herself for it.

"Only 'like,' eh?"

Katherine rolled her eyes at the smirk in his voice. "Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn't exactly matter anymore, does it?" He remained silent. "My opinion on this is still the same. Al's…" She closed her eyes tightly and took a deep breath. The d-word simply refused to come out, to even remain in her mind for more than a brief moment. "Al's gone. But I wasn't as worried about him finding out as I was about… I felt guilty for hiding it from him. I'd still feel guilty."

"It's not like he doesn't know now anyway, is it?"

"That doesn't exactly make me any more comfortable," she mumbled, letting him go and sitting back on the bed. Her arms crossed, she looked pointedly away when he glanced over his shoulder at her. "It'd be like taking advantage of the fact that he isn't here. I can't do that. That would be worse than lying to his face about it, to me."

To her surprise, Don laughed under his breath. "I figured that's what you'd say. Just had to give it a shot while you were here." He lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, smiling half-heartedly. "It's like you said earlier, you don't want many more days off if you're only getting them when someone dies." She flinched slightly at the word. "I figured I should bring it up in case I'm next or something."

"No one's going to be next," Katherine said, shaking her head. She pulled bent her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, leaning forward to rest her head against them. Smirking, she added, "And it's not like you have any _tact_, you could have just texted me on a random Tuesday or something."

"Yeah? I guess I still like you too much," he mocked, grinning back.

"Funny."

"Well, in all seriousness, I'll still be here if you change your mind. Kira isn't going to get any of _us_. You've _got_ no name. Pat and I may as well haven't, given no one knew anything about who Al worked with on a regular basis. Aside from L," he added, rolling his eyes.

"Problem with the letter?"

"Hmm." He tucked his hands behind his head, frowning thoughtfully. "He strikes me as a bit of a loony himself, honestly. Al may not have been quite on that level, but at least all his marbles were still in place. I'm not against him, but I'm still wary of him. Though honestly that incident with the tire iron could be to blame, in which case I pity the poor bloke and hope we don't get sued or something for brain damaging the world's greatest detective…"

"Just add it to your list of preexisting felonies. And from working with him, I believe his head is on pretty straight. He's a little eccentric, but it's also his first time working in person with anyone aside from Watari." Don only sighed in response. "Stop being crabby. After hitting him over the head with a tire iron and planting cameras all over his hotel rooms, we should count ourselves lucky he hasn't had us all detained."

"Yeah, yeah…" Katherine rolled her eyes this time. "I'll get used to it, I guess. But if he tries anything, I might end up doing Kira a favor and murdering him myself."

"'Tries anything'?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Like?"

"Like say he gets the wrong impression from you entrusting that notebook—"

"_Really_?" Katherine laughed at the increasingly impatient look upon his face. "Is the poor wittle Casanova _jealous—_"

"No, I'm just—"

"—of a social recluse that probably doesn't even know what a 'wrong impression' _is_?" He was nearly scowling now; he closed his eyes and let out an annoyed sigh that was almost a growl. Still laughing, she reached over and patted his head. "I somehow doubt you have anything to worry about."

Don didn't open his eyes, and his expression didn't lighten at all. "I suppose we'll see."

* * *

_Yes, seriously. You may learn a bit more about this past relationship in later chapters, so I'm not blabbing everything right now... unless you force it out of me._

_The word of the day is "pleasedon'tkillme?D'x." And on this hopefully nonlethal bombshell, I'm off to hide under my desk._


	15. Problem

_Four__ reviews in a day and none of them were about killing me! :) I love you guys. I have the most ridiculously awesome readers ever. So, yes, I was worried about the last chapter. Extremely worried about the opinions everyone would have on the past relationship between Kat and Don. Buuut it seems to be pretty accepted, for which I'm grateful. It just sort of happened by accident when I was working on their histories, and then I couldn't erase it. I was all like BLARGH. In short, my OCs hate me for everything I've put them through and will take any opportunity possible to give me a hard time. They've become sentient O-o Seriously. It's scary._

_fezzesandbowtiesarecool__: Haha thanks xD My penname might be changed soon. My user ID on most of the sites I post my writing on is CommaLlama, so it's probably going to become that soon as long as no one has any major protests about it. I'm very glad you enjoyed the last chapter and I hope this one came out as good! :D_

_XXTakaraXX__: LOL I was, I was. Good thing my keyboard has a long chord, I guess xP_

_Shadowess 88__: Yeah, really sorry it's been so long. Real-life stuff was either cutting into my free time or depressing me too much to make writing possible. I certainly hope I'm back in full swing again. You know, I'm really not sure if she's saved Watari. In the manga, after Watari died, the investigation team discovered his identity as Quillish Wammy, so I suppose it's possible that Katherine's side could have discovered the same name as… well, as blackmail on L, at which point she could have saved him. Pretty bad when your own OCs won't give you information you need. If I don't go with that, though, then she'll save him a bit later in the investigation. I already know exactly when she could in my timeline, so she should one way or another. And yeeeaaah, she kinda purposely didn't tell Pat and Don about how many years she's forgone. They may assume it, as they do know her death note __**can**__ save lives, and they know that they all knew the names of the members of the investigation team. And no, L definitely wouldn't… Don was just being a crabby jealous mistrustful butthole is all. In fact, I hope Don feels guilty for questioning L's trustworthiness after the end of this chapter._

_yvonna__: Well, all things considered, it sorta started with her entrusting him with her death note; it either starts or escalates a bit at the end of this chapter, depending on your point of view._

_And to __**everybody**__, whether you reviewed or not, thank you again for being so awesome :) I couldn't ask for a more awesome group of readers. You lot make writing even more worth it than it was in the first place for me._

_**Disclaimobob**__: I own nothing! I even think it's possible that my OCs own me at this point, rather than the other way around. They're dictating this story. I'm just writing what they tell me to._

_**Warnings**__: Well, little swearing here and there. Alcohol is mentioned. Pat's drunk off his arse in the beginning and gets a bit homicidal round midway through the chapter, so there's that. Guess that's everything? Well, hopefully._

_**Longquoteislong**__:_

"_Stop being so hard on 'er, she's just cheerful…" Pat grumbled indignantly, crossing his arms. "I mean, yeah, she's the second Kira, but still…"_

"_I can see her reasoning for doing it," Katherine sighed, "and now that she's dating Light, he's probably got her even more thoroughly brainwashed—"_

"_She's dating that __chickenshit__ son of a—"_

"—_than she was by Kira in the first place," Katherine finished, sighing. This was exactly what she had been afraid of. "And yes, she is, Pat. All the more reason to prove he's Kira and have him put to death?"_

"_The fuck with __that__, I'll kill the bastard __meself__, just let 'im near me and I swear to God—!"_

"_And now your privilege of leaving the house unsupervised has been revoked," Don interrupted._

* * *

The taste of chewed Excedrin was something like chalk; what remained had to be what hell tasted like. Don grimaced, but it was worth it; chewing them worked much more quickly than swallowing them with water. Don was going to get rid of the monster of a headache he had awoken with after maybe an hour of sleep if he had to chew twice the recommended amount of them. It didn't even feel like a hangover. It felt like blunt force trauma to the head, which he was unfortunate enough to have firsthand experience with after having a barstool smashed over his shoulders a few years back in an abysmal end to a bar fight, an experience that ended in one of his least favorite trips to the ER. He grimaced again, and this time it had nothing to do with the Excedrin.

As he swallowed what powder remained of the pills, he opened the fridge and examined its contents. It was only just after eight o'clock in the morning, still a bit too early for drinking, especially with the consideration that he hadn't even been able to catch a buzz last night, hard as he had tried; the memories of washing blood off of the wall all afternoon had left behind some very sobering mental pictures. Thinking about it, he was lucky last night hadn't resulted in a trip to the ER, as much alcohol as he had ingested.

He grabbed a bottle of water from the top shelf and was wrenching off the cap when the back door opened and a very loud, very drunken diversion stumbled through it. Don raised an eyebrow at Pat—apparently it wasn't too early to drink for _some_ of the general population—but lowered it when he realized Pat wasn't alone. Seconds later, he was tackled. It was lucky the cap was still partially on the water bottle, or he and the unexpected guest would have been drenched.

"_Don-kun_!"

_Oh heavens, no…_

The shrill voice instantly cued his rather groggy, half-asleep mind on exactly what was going on. _Misa_.

Now the chalky taste of death in his mouth had nothing to do with the Excedrin, either.

"Wh—what're you—it's eight o'clock in the bloody mornin', what're yeh doing here, Misa?" he asked exasperatedly, removing the exuberant blond from his side.

"Well…" At least she wasn't attempting to reply in English—the last time he heard her speak in English, granted he hadn't seen her in quite some time, it had been as broken as Pat's Japanese. Very similarly, Pat could understand spoken Japanese but couldn't read it well; and Misa could barely read English but could understand it fine when spoken. It was eerie, the similarities between the two of them. "Misa was in Aoyama early for a photo shoot and an interview this morning and saw Pat-kun get kicked out of a taxi." Don's hand came to his face. "So Misa stopped to help him." She pouted, crossing her arms. "Isn't Don-kun happy to see me?"

"I—of _course_, you just—er—I just woke up and you surprised me is all."

Misa giggled, and his headache screamed in response. "Just kidding! I didn't expect Don-kun to be happy anyway." Don frowned. "I heard about Al and I'm—"

"Ah. No need to dwell on that—Pat, can I speak to you for a moment?" Without waiting for an answer from the lanky, swaying figure in the laundry room behind Misa, he grabbed Pat by the shoulder, quite hard, and half-dragged him into the living room. When Don let go and turned to face him in front of the coffee table, Pat was grinning. "How stupid _are_ ya?" Don shot at him, keeping his voice down.

Pat's face fell. "B—but I… I didn'…"

"You're not supposed to go tellin' everyone you meet on the sidewalk that Al's dead!"

"But I didn', I only… well, I told Misa, but we know 'er, right? She'd a' wondered where 'e was."

"We could've told her he was out on a job."

"O… oh, yeah, righ', didn't think o' that…" Frowning thoughtfully, Pat stumbled over to the chair by the front door. "Sorry, mate."

"It's…" Don sighed. "It's fine. Next time you get drunk, though, no talking to _anyone_, strangers or otherwise."

"But I's _lost_, I 'ad to get back some'ow! Bloody taxi drivers didn' know where the place was…"

"They didn't, now."

"_No_. Well, I migh've been pronouncin' the street wrong or somethin'. Also had spent all me money, so…" He trailed off as Don leaned against the wall, shaking his head. "Misa's a model now," he said, suddenly quite chipper again. "Fancy that." Sighing, Don realized there wouldn't be much point trying to discuss this with him right now—short as Pat's attention span could be, it was only at a quarter of its normal capacity when he was this sloshed. "Has a feckin' boyfriend now, though. Just my luck, get up the nerve to ask 'er out and she's started seein' some stupid bastard as of yesterday. _Yesterday_!"

"Yeah, that's interesting an' all, but could you keep it down?" Pat and Don both looked to the hallway; Katherine stood there, glaring at Pat, her hair completely out of place and clothes from the previous night wrinkled from being slept on, and this made her all the more threatening if only for the knowledge that she could be rather grouchy when awoken in such an unorthodox manner. "I had _just_ gotten to sleep when you came in raising all this hell…"

"You should go say hello to your best friend in the world before you fall back asleep." Her brow furrowed at Don's sarcasm. He jerked a thumb behind him, out the doorway he was leaning against. "The _dog_ dragged home something you'll want to see."

"What're you…?" It dawned upon her, and her eyes widened in horror. "Misa…?"

"_Yep_. She helped the poor mutt find his way home," Don said, grinning. "And I'm guessing paid for his cab fare since he spent it all drinking." Pat grinned, though his was more out of guiltiness. "Mind telling her I'm done speaking with Pat?"

"She… damn it…" she muttered. They hadn't managed to cover quite every topic last night—neither of them had any idea that the second Kira was standing in their kitchen at this very moment, probably with Shinigami in tow. It seemed Don and Pat had both mistaken her mutterings as general annoyance that Misa was here, as they both seemed rather amused. Sighing, Katherine stomped across the living room, pushing Don away from the doorframe as she walked through it—his snickering followed her.

And there Misa was, looking mildly confused, perhaps a little worried; Rem hovering behind her, looking more than a little shocked to see Katherine. Katherine trained her eyes away from the familiar figure and onto Misa—if Rem didn't say anything, then Katherine certainly had no intentions of it. The confusion faded from Misa's face as she spotted Katherine, to be replaced with her regular cheer.

"_Kat-chan_!" Katherine flinched slightly when she was tackled, and managed to put on a poker face when the blond let her go. "Misa hasn't seen you in _forever_! Misa didn't wake Kat-chan, did she?" she asked carefully, obviously taking in the other girl's disheveled appearance.

"Good to see you too, Misa. It was Pat who woke me up, don't worry."

"He _can_ be kind of loud when he's like this…" Misa agreed. Smiling again, she added, "I can't stay too long. Misa has a photo shoot she has to get to for a magazine!"

"Oh, was it you Pat was talking about being a model now?" She nodded. "Congrats."

"Thank you!" she replied, giggling happily. "What's Kat-chan been doing?"

"College. I got into To-Oh somehow." No need for Misa to know that "somehow" involved her friends' expertise in fraud, even if Misa knew fully well that they were all criminals—her heart sank as this dawned upon her. If she had seen Pat and Don, she had seen their names.

"Oh, that's where my boyfriend goes!" she said excitedly—then her face fell into a pout. "_Oooh_, I can't tell you about him, though!" she said disappointedly. "We're supposed to keep it a secret so it doesn't get all over the tabloids or anything. But… Kat-chan won't tell anyone, right?" she whispered.

Boyfriend… Katherine did wonder. "Of course not. I know how to keep a secret. And besides, we're friends, aren't we, Misa?" Katherine smiled, and Misa grinned back.

"Do you know Yagami Light?" she asked quietly.

And her wonderings were correct—Kira and his unofficial servant had met, and he had undoubtedly made her an official servant under Misa's own terms. "Of course I do, he's one of the freshman representatives. You're dating _him_?" Misa nodded, looking extremely pleased with herself. "_Wow_, I wouldn't think he'd be your type at all. He's so serious all the time."

Indignantly, Misa replied, "He is Misa's type! Misa really _really_ likes him."

Smiling, Katherine said, "Well, congratulations to you two."

"Now we have to find Kat-chan a boyfriend so we can do double-dates!" Katherine only barely managed not to flinch.

"Nah, I think I'll have to pass," she said, laughing a little awkwardly. "I like the single life. Maybe I'll drag Pat or Don along occasionally or something." Pat may not have been such a good idea—while he wouldn't hurt a fly in most instances, Katherine wouldn't have at all been surprised to see him strangle any boyfriend of Misa's, regardless of whether that boyfriend was Kira or just some average Joe. Jealousy could do strange things to a person.

"_Yay_! Misa will call Kat-chan and we can figure out a day! Is Kat-chan's cell phone number still the same?" Katherine nodded, silently cursing herself. "All right! Misa has to go now, though. I don't want to be late for my photo shoot!" Katherine sighed inwardly when she was hugged again. "Tell Don-kun and Pat-kun that Misa said bye!"

"I will. See you around, Misa."

Katherine watched her leave, watched Rem glance over her shoulder at Katherine. If Misa had the eyes—and she undoubtedly did—she would be asking Rem why Katherine had no name, no numbers ticking off above her head… if she hadn't asked already. Misa had seen her on the street on the twenty-second in Aoyama, with Light and Matsuda, though it was a gamble as to whether or not Misa had recognized Katherine in her disguise. Katherine almost hadn't recognized Misa in hers, at the very least. Now there was no doubting it, seeing Rem following an undisguised Misa around.

Sighing, Katherine walked back out into the living room, any urge she might have had to just go back to sleep for a few hours gone. When she reached the living room, Don was stretched across the couch and Pat was snoring, legs hanging over one arm of the chair, passed out. She kicked him in the shin when she reached him and he fell out of the chair. "We have a problem, sober up."

"Wh—how?" he asked, propping himself up on his elbows.

"Well, if what I'm about to tell you doesn't work, maybe I'll just pour a bucket of ice water over you." Don was sitting up now, eyebrow quirked. "The second Kira has just seen _both_ of your names." She watched as Pat's jaw dropped at her, and the color drained from Don's face. "I was planning on covering that base today. I would have last night if I'd had _any_ idea there was even a _chance_ of this happening."

"This is…" Don set down the now half-empty bottle of water on the coffee table, and ran a hand through his hair distractedly. "She knows about us. She _knows—_"

"I know," Katherine said. "I don't have a name, but you two _do_. All we can really do is hope that she actually considers us good enough friends to not kill you two."

"B… but it's _Misa_, she wouldn't…" Pat sat up against the table, definitely looking a bit more sober—and utterly crushed. Katherine felt a surge of pity for him, and had to look away from him. "I—I'm the one who told her we were—"

"We had no way of knowing she was going to get a death note and join the dark side, Pat," Don said—Katherine was glad there wasn't going to be a repeat of last night's blame game. "Don't bother thinking about that."

"I wonder if a legal change of name do anything in regards of death notes…" Katherine mused.

"We couldn't anyway," Don said, shaking his head. "I know I don't have the documents for my real identity. And if I did, I'd burn them so no one could prove it. Going to guess you don't have yours either?" Pat shook his head in response. "We'd sor' of need those. Anything else is just another fake identity." Katherine bowed her head. "I don't _personally_ think she'll do anything. It's not good, certainly, but she definitely seems to honestly look at us as friends." He laughed. "For once I'm actually sor' of happy about that."

"Stop being so hard on 'er, she's just cheerful…" Pat grumbled indignantly, crossing his arms. "I mean, yeah, she's the second Kira, but still…"

"I can see her reasoning for doing it," Katherine sighed, "and now that she's dating Light, he's probably got her even more thoroughly brainwashed—"

"She's dating that _chickenshit_ son of a—"

"—than she was by Kira in the first place," Katherine finished, sighing. This was exactly what she had been afraid of. "And yes, she is, Pat. All the more reason to prove he's Kira and have him put to death, yeah?"

"The fuck with _that_, I'll kill the bastard _meself_, just let 'im near me and I swear to God—!"

"And now your privilege of leaving the house unsupervised has been revoked," Don interrupted. "I want him dead 's well, mate, but I also want it publicized that the world's _savior_ was nothing but a skinny little piece of shit who's a worse criminal than anyone he's killed so far. You know what's going to happen if _you_ kill him?" Pat was silent, staring at his knees. "Everyone's going to feel bad for the _poor kid_, the To-Oh freshman representative with _such_ a bright future ahead of him. Everyone's going to look at _you_ as a prime example of the reason society needs Kira. Do you want him martyred, or do you want to strip him of all that fake honor and watch him die at the hands of all the people he's fooled into thinking he's some sort of god?"

Sighing, Pat unclenched his fists. "I get what you're sayin'. I won't go looking for him or nothin', and if I ever have the _pleasure_ of meeting him I'll _try_ not to smash his face into the nearest wall. No guarantees, but I'll try to control meself."

"Good enough. I imagine we've got a lot to catch up on, so let's go ahead and get it out of the way so we can actually get some sleep tonight and get back to work in the morning."

Katherine hoped beyond hope that Don was right about Misa; that Misa wouldn't do anything to Pat and Don, particularly not tell Light their names. It was only fitting that such a long night as last night should lead into an even longer day. She sighed heavily. "Can I at least go get dressed first?"

* * *

At four o'clock the next morning, almost on the dot, Katherine swiped her keycard and crept through the door into the hotel room, in slight dismay. Even under the circumstances, even discussing the Kira case, even with Al gone, it had actually been a _good_ day, one of the first she'd had since getting stationed with the investigation team. It hadn't come to her quite how much she had missed them until she was driving away, their suburban house lit up by the taillights of her car, so clear in her rearview mirror. The thought that this would be the last time she would ever see them if Misa decided her role as second Kira was more important to her than her friends, a thought that had been plaguing Katherine all day, hardly did anything to comfort her.

When she stopped her hand that was unconsciously wiping a few stray tears from her eyes, she saw that there were only a couple lights in the first room of the hotel suite—a lamp and a laptop monitor. The only person awake was L, sitting in front of the laptop and reviewing paperwork of some variety. She watched him for a moment before walking over and sitting next to him on the sofa. "Misa is definitely the second Kira. She's dating Light." Still holding a sheet of paper in front of his face, L looked over, definitely mildly alarmed. "There was some drama when we first spoke yesterday. Don and I got in an argument, Pat took off and came home drunk at around eight in the morning, but he wouldn't have made it home if not for running into Misa. She paid for his cab fare and escorted him back, and told me that she's dating Light while we catching up." She grimaced. "And she's talking about finding me a boyfriend so we can go on _double dates_. But aside from this, I saw her, undisguised, with the same Shinigami you saw in the surveillance video following her. She's spoken with Light, and undoubtedly forced him to be her boyfriend in exchange for being his eyes."

"That's…"

"That's Misa." Katherine sighed, sitting back on the sofa and staring up at the ceiling. "And this also means she's seen Pat and Don, which means she has their names. We discussed our options, but there really _aren't_ any. Even if changing their names would work, they don't have any of the documents they'd need in order to do so. We're hoping that friendship will overrule her feelings about Kira. Misa isn't as objective as Light seems to be. Her family was murdered by a burglar, but she knows what we are and still considers us her best friends because we don't do the killing game."

"There's still a risk that she might go after them, if she even mentions it to Kira and he tells her to. The second Kira is dangerously obsessed with Kira." Katherine remained silent. "Is there any chance of gaining the documents?"

"For changing their name?" Katherine shook her head, closing her eyes. "Pat doesn't have any family left in Ireland, which means anything his grandmother had for him when she was alive is currently in possession of the government. Don… I know his mother's dead. I believe his father's in prison. So, odds are, it's the same case for him. And there's no saying that changing their names would be of any help, anyway."

"If the government is in possession of them, myself or Watari will have no trouble getting hold of them. Even if they aren't in possession of those that their parents or guardians had, there should be copies." Katherine opened her eyes and looked over, brow furrowed. "Then arrangements can be made to change their names. Hopefully no more than once, but if they see Misa again before we have the chance to confine her it could be necessary."

"Y… you think you can?"

"Yes," L replied, before going back to the papers he had been looking through. Katherine realized a moment after asking that this was a ridiculous question—L had every government in the world in his pocket at this point. Getting Don and Pat's birth certificates would be child's play for him.

"If you knew you could, why did you ask if you'd be able to?"

"Because Alvin McManerberry destroyed his on the government level as well." That did seem typical of Al. She found herself looking at the scars over her fingerprints from burning them off with lye. Safety first—Katherine sighed, closing those fingers into fists and setting them in her lap, her eyes burning a little. "If there's any chance Pat and Don have done this, then it won't be possible."

"I don't think they have," Katherine said. "Don mentioned earlier that he would if he had his." L had stacked the papers and was placing them on the coffee table beside the laptop, which, Katherine now noted, had a large, Old English letter 'L' upon the screen; so Watari was already standing by. Leaning forward, L pressed down the button on the base of the microphone next to the computer. "Watari-san."

"Yes, Ryuzaki?"

"I would like you to make arrangements to legally change the names of Katherine-san's outside agents. They have come into contact with the main second Kira suspect. The reasons for the name change should be confidential to the Irish government."

"Yes, Ryuzaki."

L sat back and picked up the top paper off of the stack again. "Inform your friends as soon as possible to limit their face-to-face contact with Amane Misa as much as poss—" L was cut short by the unexpected tackle-hug he received a moment later when Katherine snapped out of her shock. "…possible," he finished offhandedly when she let go.

"If there's anything I can do in return—"

"You have already given up a year of your life to ensure I survive this case." Katherine blinked—she had forgotten about that for a moment in her excitement. "I suppose you could think of this as a thanks."

"You know," she said, sitting back, "we could avoid all this trouble if you'd just _tell_ me their names and let me—"

"No."

Katherine laughed, standing and retrieving her cell phone from her pocket. "I'm only joking. I figured you'd say no." Once again, she bent and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "This is worth a lot more to me than one measly year. So _thank you_."

And with that, she pecked him on the cheek, let go of him, and almost skipped back to the kitchen to call her friends, leaving L to blink at his sheet of paper in mild confusion that really didn't have anything to do with what he was reading.

* * *

_Poor L. (Three) greatest detective(s) in the world, and still befuddled by women.  
_

_And that concludes the chapter! I felt so bad for Pat when I was writing his little outburst over Light dating Misa :( I might not be very fond of her, but he adores her. It's barely even jealousy (though that is definitely part of it), it's more than anything the fact that he knows Light is just using her. -sniffsniff- D'x_

_Your word of the day is… bombshell!_

_And on that word of the day, I'm off. _

_:D_


	16. Restrained

_Eeeeeeep five reviews this time! This maketh me happy._

_Readers of the original TKN, or the DN manga in general, should recognize this chapter. Not an all-original one this time like the last couple have been._

_Stormygio__: Thanks! Is a day soon enough? xD_

_yvonna__: She does, but at the same time if she even mentioned them to Light and he commanded her, it's hard to say whether or not she would go against a direct order from him. I think so, anyway._

_XXTakaraXX__: xD I'm not too entirely fond of her either, but she's an important part of the story… and Pat unfortunately loves her to death. -mumbles about OCs being rebellious-_

_Xxyangxx2006__: Mmm, I feel bad for her to a certain extent. Probably more than I did when I first started with the Death Note series. I still don't like her much, but I do feel some sympathy for her, if only because I've since learned what losing family really feels like. But at the same time, she killed innocent people on purpose, which really makes her no better than her family's murderer. And Pat tends to bring this kind of thing on himself, in all honesty xD I feel terrible for the crap I write my OCs into, but something drives me to keep doing it. And thank you, I'll most certainly try to! :D_

_Shadowess 88__: I just read through the How to Use booklet I got with my box set that has all the rules of the death note and I didn't find anything on the subject of legal name changes in the human world in regards to their effect on a death note :( It has a ton of interesting information in it on the exact rules of the death note, and some interesting information that gives a little more insight into how the shinigami society really functions, but nothing on legal name changes. As far as the latter, I think it would depend on the owner of the death note in question—if they knew both people, they would indeed find it difficult to kill one of them… i.e. if identical twins were separated at birth, ended up with the same name under a ridiculous coincidence, and someone knew both but wanted to kill one… it could get a bit confusing for both the death note user and the death note itself. There is a rule that says if the same name is written in two death notes within 0.06 or 0.006 seconds of each other, the person in question won't die. I sort of wonder if writing one name that could kill two people, would result in a similar situation to the same name being written in two death notes simultaneously to kill one person. The situations are like polar opposites, which does after all make them remarkably similar in a way… I think that I think way too much about Death Note philosophy -headdesk- This may be why I end up with so many fanfics on what-if situations… _

_Hhhhmmm, I believe she would still see L's name; the names would still be visible, and could be written in death notes, but it of course wouldn't have the same effect as it would on someone who hadn't been saved. LOL, that'd be an interesting question to ask Ohba in a random fan interview xD Figures his identity would be as guarded as L's. :( -secretly thinks maybe he is L- -fangirlconspiracyspazz- o-O …-pokes super-long reply- I am sorry about that. I can get ridiculously carried away thinking about death note…_

_**Discoclam**__: Me no oooowns :)_

_**Warnings**__: L-pestering?_

_********__Stop-with-these-epic-length-quotes-already_:

"_So," Katherine said, a little too casually, "I didn't have you pegged as the teen-magazine-reading sort. That seems more like something Mattie-kun would be into."_

_L didn't glance at her. "I assume you're joking."_

"_Of __course__ not! I know you're only detaining Misa in order to get her autograph and force her to dump Light and go out with you. And you only stole her cell phone because you're a creepy stalker who wanted to read all of her texts. Obviously." Katherine scoffed. "You could have just asked me to talk to her. Given that she's my 'best friend.'"_

"_Is there any particular reason you're being more absurd than usual?"_

"_I'm not being absurd, I'm being in-character." She was smirking when he did glance at her. "Which you were doing a good job of. You have to remember you're not a detective when you're here, you're a college-creep with a dangerous obsession of the up-and-coming model Misa Amane."_

* * *

In Katherine's absence from headquarters, quite a bit of progress had been made—forensic evidence had been gathered and reviewed, and all signs pointed straight to Misa being the sender of the second Kira videos. No one but Katherine, Pat, Don, and now L knew of Misa's relationship with Light. Katherine was hopeful that this information would come out in the interrogation stage, once they got there. If L's rather secret plans played out properly then that stage might be reached very soon; Katherine had been stationed at To-Oh University today, attended a few classes she had been neglecting for quite some time now, and was now closing her cell phone and lighting a cigarette, sitting on the hood of her car. Stage one of her role in the plan was set.

Her lunch break was within the same block as Light's; Katherine had stationed herself in a campus parking lot where she would meet Misa very shortly—Misa was going to properly introduce her to her wonderful new boyfriend. Sitting back against the windshield, she smiled; somewhere else on the campus, L was waiting for Light, under the façade of Hideki Ryuuga. The full details of the plan hadn't been lain out for her—her objective was to draw Misa to the campus and assist her in locating Light, to lead her into some sort of a trap. It was pure luck that Misa had already been headed that way; she had a photo shoot nearby and had been planning to stop by and see her _Raito-kun_.

Katherine flinched slightly, glad for once that she wasn't supposed to give Pat and Don inside information. Whatever was being planned, Pat would not have stood for any Misa trickery.

The flinch turned into a grimace when she heard a cry of "Kat-chan!" from somewhere behind her. A moment later, Misa had hopped onto the hood of the car next to her. Misa frowned very pointedly. "Kat-_chan_, that's not good for you—"

"I'm putting it out…" she mumbled, dropping the cigarette into an empty soda can at her side. Sighing, she smiled at Misa. "My last class was actually with Yagami-kun, he'll probably be around the other side of the campus near the cafeteria." _With one of his other girlfriends,_ she added to herself. Probably something else he had arranged with Misa to avoid suspicion—over the past few days, Light had stumbled into quite the barrage of girlfriends. He would undoubtedly be strolling the campus with Kiyomi Takada, though ever-eccentric L would likely scare the prissy Miss To-Oh into scurrying away from her new boyfriend.

It was very doubtful he would deter Misa at all, not from her wonderful Light-kun, at least. L's plans from the point of Misa's delivery to him onward remained a complete mystery to Katherine.

Misa squeeled, and Katherine closed her eyes. "Kat-chan _has_ to meet Light-kun!"

"Well, I sort of have already, I was a freshman representative too…"

"But Kat-chan and Light-kun have to be friends, too," Misa said, pouting at Katherine's apparent lack of enthusiasm. "Come _on_, Kat-chan!" Misa was now tugging her off of the car by her arm.

"I already said I would, don't worry," Katherine said. "I guess the heat's just got me in a crabby mood. It didn't get this warm in Ireland this time of the year. Sorry." She smiled. "Shall we go find Yagami-kun?"

Within minutes, they were nearly across campus, Rem hovering silently behind them as Misa chided Katherine about her wardrobe, which at this point seemed a mandatory conversation topic any time Katherine spent any amount of time around the blond. She half-listened, nodding at the chatter over t-shirts and jeans and the appropriate time to wear such clothing. "Misa is going to have to take Kat-chan out shopping," Misa said, nodding with a sort of finality that Katherine didn't really like. "Kat-chan needs a make-over."

"I'm fine, Misa, really. I know how to dress nice, I just prefer not to. I dressed quite nice for the To-Oh Entrance Ceremony, ask anyone. Ask Pat and Don, _they_ wouldn't stop laughing at me."

"That's not very nice of them," Misa said disapprovingly. "No wonder Kat-chan doesn't like dressing nice! Misa's going to have to have a talk with Pat-kun and Don-kun."

Katherine sighed—there was really no winning this. With any luck, however, the chatty blond would be proven as the second Kira quite soon. It seemed a plea bargain would be possible—Misa wouldn't face the death sentence, might face some prison time, and likely wouldn't forgive Katherine for betraying their friendship and leading her right into this trap. There was a little guilt on Katherine's part at this, but if it meant avoiding a make-over by Misa, then a little guilt was a small price to pay.

Before Misa noticed Light ahead of them, Katherine spotted the immaculately groomed Light Yagami walking alongside his decidedly sloppier "friend," Hideki Ryuuga; Ryuk was hovering along behind them, and both parties were doing a very good job of ignoring the spooky clown-like beast, just as both Katherine and Misa were doing for Rem—though odds were, at this point, Misa knew full well Katherine could see Rem.

Katherine kept her eyes trained on the group in front of them, wondering if she should point them out—they were still a little ways away, though walking a bit more slowly than Misa and Katherine. An idea crossed her as they closed the distance a bit more, as Misa noticed them ("It's Light-kun, hurry _up_, Kat-chan! Who's that he's walking with…?"), and it positively refused to leave. The key to good acting was a good back-story, and publicly humiliating L just made it even more worth it. Since the previous night he had barely looked at or spoken to her, and she was highly amused that the so-called greatest detective in the world was so befuddled by a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Adding to it would just make this game all the more entertaining. It was, she supposed, also sort of a benefit that he was rather adorable when confused; it reminded her slightly of a lost puppy.

"Light-kun, we found you!"

The two stopped in their tracks at Misa's yell—Light half-turned to look back at Misa, and Katherine tackled L before he had the chance, with a yell of, "Ryuu-kuuuun!" The detective stumbled forward in surprise, and Katherine let go before he actually fell. "Ryuu-kun, you hang out with Yagami-kun all the time, why didn't you tell me he was dating my _best friend_? I just heard from Misa yesterday!"

"I—wh—?" L straightened to his regular posture—which, indeed, wasn't particularly straight—looking genuinely confused. His eyes landed on Misa and he quickly regained his composure. "Yagami-kun neglected to mention he was dating anyone." Katherine was glad to see that Light, for the moment, looked almost horrorstruck at this sudden diversion. Ryuk, however, was snickering quietly behind him, very thoroughly amused by the ordeal.

How was Kira going to get out of _this_ one?

"Ryuu-kun?" Misa asked, head tilted slightly—Katherine noticed her eyes were fixated slightly over his head for a moment.

"Ryuu-kun is a mutual friend of Yagami-kun and I," Katherine explained.

"Oh!" Smiling, Misa leaned forward slightly. "I'm Light-kun's girlfriend, Misa Amane. It's nice to meet you."

"I'm Hideki Ryuuga."

Light jumped in quickly, when Misa's eyes again darted to a point just slightly over L's head. "Yes, he has the same name as that idol—funny, isn't it?"

The look of triumph that crossed Light's face was there for only a very brief moment, but it was unmistakable—his eyes had just seen L's real name, and he was completely unaware that writing that name in his death note would do positively nothing. Katherine tried not to let her own expression flicker at all, though that feeling of triumph was on her side right now as well.

"I had a shoot nearby so I thought I'd stop by to see Light-kun!" Misa explained to Light happily. "But Misa has to be there before two o'clock…"

"Yagami-kun…" Light and Misa turned their attention to L; Katherine had already been curiously watching when she noticed him take a step closer to Misa. Part of the plan, perhaps…? Light's eyes widened for a moment, as he waited for L to continue. "I envy you." Katherine's brow furrowed along with Light's. There was no way he was going to try something so—"I've been a big fan of Misa since the March issue of _18_!"

And he was. Misa was completely fooled—she gasped in surprise, but looked absolutely thrilled. "Really? That's great! Kat-chan, why didn't you tell Misa your friend was a fan?"

Katherine smiled, trying quite hard not to laugh as others walking past stopped at the mention of Misa, and recognized her. "Sorry, Misa—I figured Pat has enough fanboy in him for at least twenty people."

Misa, however, had already noticed the crowd she was gathering; she had turned away from L and was almost striking a pose as she said delightedly, "Wow, I'm really getting popular with young people—hey! Who just touched my butt?" she interjected suddenly, looking around in shock and confusion.

"I won't allow such an imprudent action on this campus—I will take the responsibility of catching the culprit!"

Everyone was much too distracted by Misa to notice L quickly pocketing her cell phone—Misa giggled at his apparent enthusiasm. "You're funny."

Misa was thoroughly enjoying all the attention, as the crowd grew steadily larger, more and more people getting drawn in at the idea of a celebrity, an up-and-coming model, on _their_ college campus. After a few minutes, however, a stern business-woman with wire-rimmed glasses and hair in a tight bun broke through the crowd and took Misa's wrist, scolding her about being late for another photo shoot—her manager. Katherine wondered for a moment if her rescuing Pat had made her late yesterday morning. As Misa was being dragged off, Rem hovering silently behind her, Misa looked over her shoulder and called back, "Bye Light-kun! See you after work! And I'll call you about that shopping trip, Kat-chan!"

Slowly, the crowd cleared off, leaving Katherine, L, and Light standing together. She looked between the two. "We all have Psychology next, right?"

"Yeah," Light said, turning. "I'll see you there after I go to the bathroom." He slowly walked off. Katherine watched him for a moment, and saw him take his own cell phone from his pocket—calling Misa to get L's real name. She turned, and hurried after L. Surely enough, a phone rang in L's pocket, and the phone he took out certainly was not one of his… unless, of course, he wasn't kidding about being a fan of Misa's and had recently added Misa-Misa antenna décor to one of his. The mere thought nearly caused a laugh to escape her.

After checking the screen, he flipped it open and held it to his ear. "Yes?" Katherine glanced back to see Light had stopped in his tracks. "Hello? Helloo?"

No more than a few feet behind them, Light replied flatly, "Ryuuga… what are you doing?"

"I found this cell phone in the chaos earlier. I thought someone must have dropped it." Light was silent, for a very long moment. "Hello?" L repeated again.

"Ah, Misa must have dropped her phone. I'll return it to her."

"Oh? I see." L closed the phone and turned—Light was behind him now, and L handed the phone over by its antenna. Even with his face straight, something in Light's eyes reflected utter loathing at this moment—L's eyes reflected positively nothing for the moment. Light turned and walked off without another word, as did L. Once again, Katherine hurried after the latter.

"You realize Misa has two cell phones?"

"It won't be important. That one served its purpose, fortunately." Katherine tilted her head. "Yagami-san called that cell phone—her personal phone—first. When he attempts calling her business phone, Amane-san will not answer, as she will be in the custody of the task force." That was what all of this was leading up to, then. Katherine frowned for a moment.

"We really had enough evidence on her to do that?"

"The police haven't been informed of this development."

Then they didn't have enough information to detain her—not legally, at the very least. "Oh. Gotcha." It wasn't best to discuss this at length in the middle of the To-Oh campus. A subject change, she decided, was in immediate order—she smirked. "So," Katherine said, a little too casually, "I didn't have you pegged as the teen-magazine-reading sort. That seems more like something Mattie-kun would be into."

L didn't glance at her. "I assume you're joking."

"Of _course_ not! I know you're only detaining Misa in order to get her autograph and force her to dump Light and go out with you. And you only stole her cell phone because you're a creepy stalker who wanted to read all of her texts. Obviously." Katherine scoffed. "You could have just asked me to talk to her. Given that she's my 'best friend.'"

"Is there any reason you're being more absurd than usual?"

"I'm not being absurd, I'm being in-character." She was smirking when he did glance at her. "Which you _were_ doing a good job of. You have to remember you're not a detective when you're here, you're a college-creep with a dangerous obsession of the up-and-coming model Misa Amane. And I'm a slacker that's skipping the rest of her classes." She stopped at the walkway that lead off to the parking lot. "Are you really going to bother with that Psychology class? Even _I_ thought it was useless and I don't exactly have any formal training in the subject."

L stopped as well at this. "I have no means of returning to headquarters until Amane-san is properly restrained."

Katherine frowned—she had expected that L had no idea of how to operate a car. He was stuck here until his regular chauffer finished taking care of Misa, so it seemed. "All right, then. I mean, my car _does_ have more than one seat, but I understand if you don't entirely trust my driving. See you later, Ryuu-kun."

* * *

"Ugh!"

Katherine placed her hand on the table the evidence was scattered upon in headquarters, hard, shaking the table just enough to knock a few bits of evidence out of their neatly arranged rows, a few papers out of their orderly stacks. Aizawa glared at her in response, and she glared back.

"We've been over the evidence a thousand _freaking_ times," she said through gritted teeth. "It's very simple. Who here doesn't understand it?"

"If there is _one_ hole in any of this," Aizawa said just as irritably, "then we're criminals. We had to kidnap Amane to put her in custody. Do you realize we could lose our jobs over something like that, or are you _really_ that much of an idiot?"

If Katherine had any idea that this was what she would be coming back to the hotel room to, she would have gone to that Psychology class as well. However, now she was back in the hotel room, and had been looking over the same evidence for hours, wondering just how long it was going to take Watari to secure Misa and bring back the primary peacekeeper; now she was stuck with the bane of her existence, not to mention his ridiculous afro, looking over the evidence again, and again, and again, just for good measure.

_Safety first_…. Katherine scoffed inwardly; Al might have actually gotten along with this bastard.

"_Idiot_?" Katherine repeated, moving her hand off of the table to place it on her hip. She laughed. "_I'm_ the one who figured out Misa was the second Kira! Or is that _why_ you're double-checking—pardon, quadruple-checking the evidence? Because you still don't trust me?"

"Given Kira is someone Misa knows, and you're already a suspect, no, I can't say I do completely trust you."

"Well, isn't _that_ brilliant! If I'm Kira, why would I have gone and pointed out my accomplice and gotten her caught and confined? That would be ridiculous!"

"Aaah, shouldn't we be discussing evidence…?" Matsuda interjected carefully, keeping a slight distance from the two.

"We _are_, idiot—there's plenty of evidence against her."

"Don't you talk to onii-chan in that tone of voice!" Katherine shot at him.

"_Brother_? What the hell are you talking about _now_?"

"Would the two of you stop acting like three-year-olds and get back to work?" Yagami cut in impatiently.

"Sorry, chief…" Aizawa replied, immediately dropping their third argument since Katherine had returned.

Katherine rolled her eyes at him before going back to the papers, grumbling under her breath, "He started it…"

At the sound of a lock clicking, their attentions turned from the evidence upon the table to the door—it opened, and L entered, heading immediately for the computer, which was once again sporting an Old English letter L. He spoke into the microphone.

"Watari, has she said anything?"

"_I'm sorry, no she hasn't._" There was a momentary pause. "_She hasn't even complained about being held up._"

"Held up…?" Matsuda repeated quietly—they were collectively moving away from the table to watch the computer now, gathering behind L's armchair. "What's that supposed to…"

"Very well… send the images this way."

"_Are you sure?_"

"It will be fine, just send them."

The L was suddenly gone from the screen, and replaced with an image that caused the room to break into an outrage—Misa was certainly _held up_, and wouldn't be getting away by any means. Bound in a straight jacket, eyes covered, belts crossing over her entire body, attaching her to an upright gurney; her ankles were held by metal restraints at the bottom of the gurney. Hovering near the cot, Rem was positively fuming with anger, though only L and Katherine would be able to see this. This all was effective, but at the same time, Katherine felt her fists clench a bit. She may not have been fond of Misa, but did she really deserve _this_ sort of treatment?

Then again… if it was Light, the first Kira, she wouldn't have protested it for a moment. Just by supporting the psychopath, Misa held some part in Al's death, in the deaths of undoubtedly hundreds of people, many of whom may have been wrongly accused of their crimes. Light may have held the ultimate source of Kira's power, but his supporters were all somewhat responsible for his reign of terror—supporters like Misa, who were willing to help him, were all the worse.

Katherine shook her head. "That _can't_ be legal."

"R… Ryuzaki… is this really…?" Yagami trailed off, at a total loss for words. He was a respectable investigator, and he had partaken in this madness; speechlessness was only natural.

"This is the only logical way to restrain the second Kira," L said, and he certainly sounded one hundred percent sure of this—if not one hundred percent, then at least ninety. "Of course it will have been a terrible idea if she turns out innocent—"

"Given you'll all be criminals," Katherine said, crossing her arms.

"And you _won't_."

"I already _am_, thank you," she shot at Aizawa.

"—but I'm positive it's her," L finished.

"Yeah," Aizawa agreed, "it has to be. The evidence doesn't point to anyone else. There was a notebook in her room with the same paper as the diary entry and even a pen with the same ink, and she also has the same stamps as the ones on the envelopes. Also, there was pollen found on the envelopes that came from a flower native to where she lived before moving to Kanto. That flower doesn't exist here. The prints we found don't match, but someone else could have touched the tapes at some point—if she wore gloves, her prints wouldn't show up, and she'd have a scapegoat."

"She also has train ticket stubs from when she went to Nagano and Tokyo to send the other tapes," Matsuda said. "Since the stations still have security tapes from those days, we could borrow them to check to make sure she's on the footage."

"With all the physical evidence, it does seem pretty certain…" Yagami agreed, looking from the video of Misa streaming to them to L.

"There's no mistake," L agreed. "Now there's only how she kills, and whether she knows who Kira is."

"If she was told not to talk, it could be virtually impossible," Katherine said. "Misa worshipped Kira like a proper God."

"We'll have to make her confess." L went back to the microphone for a moment. "Watari, do everything within the limit of keeping her alive to make her talk."

"_Yes, Ryuzaki._"

The screen was replaced with the solitary letter L once again. Katherine looked at L. "That doesn't sound particularly legal, either." L picked up an undoubtedly cold cup of coffee from beside the computer.

"And… Yagami-san." Katherine was relatively unsurprised that he chose to ignore her accusation. "I have already restricted Light-kun's access of investigation headquarters. He may be summoned for questioning as a prime suspect very soon." He glanced over his shoulder at the very shocked older man. "Please be prepared for that."

After a silent moment, Yagami asked, "Wh… why question him now?"

"Your son had been dating Misa, Yagami-san. Since approximately three days ago." Katherine frowned, feeling some sympathy for the man—if accusations of being Kira felt horrid, and they did, she could hardly imagine what being told your own child was a main suspect was like, especially after months of work to prove he wasn't. "She helped one of my friends home after an argument that resulted in him going off and drinking himself half to death, and she told me then, yesterday morning. The same day we received the message stating she had found Kira, was the day they began dating."

L set down his coffee cup momentarily after taking a sip. "If Light-kun is Kira, he could kill her to silence her," L said, "but that is unlikely. It would draw attention to him, as very few people currently know of Amane-san's arrest."

Or perhaps Rem wouldn't let him kill her without a fight, Katherine thought—that was a certain possibility. Rem was nothing like Ryuk. Rem was quite serious, hadn't cracked a single joke or cackled when Katherine met her four years ago. If Rem was with Misa, it was probable that Rem was protecting her from Light.

* * *

It wasn't love, it was obsession, and Misa was a complete moron.

Having stolen L's chair in front of the laptop when he was off unwittingly refilling his coffee cup, Katherine lounged with her legs hanging over one arm of the comfortable recliner, cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth, tossing a ball of foil chocolate wrappers in the air and caught it. It had been three days and positively nothing from Misa, not a single word. The girl was brainwashed, which was terrible considering how few brains she had in the first place.

Love. How Misa simply _loved_ her _Raito-kun_. If she spoke up about him, got herself out of this mess, then Light would die, and she couldn't live without him, without her savior, without her _God_. Her obsession with Kira was now endangering her health, her own life as far as she knew, and yet she was doing positively nothing to free herself. Katherine flicked a few ashes off of the cigarette she had been smoking to keep her from having a complete outburst about all of this into her own empty coffee cup beside the computer. This entire situation was utterly ridiculous. Ryuk had really done a number on the world when he decided to drop a death note—but to what end? The way the Shinigami was acting, it was as though it was just a means of entertaining himself. This somehow wouldn't have surprised her in the least bit.

"You're in my chair."

Katherine tilted her head back and looked at the insomniac upside down as she took a drag on her cigarette. She pulled it away from her lips and spoke, the smoke wafting up at L, "Your point?" He blinked quite owlishly at her for a moment, at the computer behind the chair, at her. "It's the most comfortable chair in this hotel room and you've been hogging it since we got to this hotel yesterday. I don't wanna hear it." He blinked a bit more, and she stuck her tongue out at him before going back to tossing her foil ball.

"_Amane is talking._"

Katherine missed catching it this time, and moved quickly out of her seat. L turned it to face the computer as he jumped over an arm of the chair. "Visuals and audio now!" he commanded—successfully waking up the rest of the investigation team. It was well after midnight, but it was doubtful they would protest awakening to anything this important.

Within moments, Misa was on the screen again, still as thoroughly restrained as before. This time, however, she seemed to have straightened up against her restraints, rather than sagging lifelessly against them as she had been in past viewings. She spoke up, quite firmly.

"I… can't take it anymore. Kill me!"

* * *

_Longer chapter than normal… forgive me for my epic absence please? :D I mean, I have been writing a chapter a day, and they've all been longer than my regular right-around-three-thousand, and this one came out to over four thousand! Though… admittedly, this has been by accident, but still!_

_Aaaaanyways, the word of the day is bird._

_Because everybody knows that the bird is the word._

_Forgive me. My nephew has been repeatedly listening to "Surfin' Bird" lately and it's stuck in my head._

_On that bombshell, I'm off… to go work on the next chapter. Note to self: cliffhangers drive both readers __and__ writers utterly bonkers._


	17. Friend

_Six reviews this time… which means we crossed the 80-review mark on this chapter! WOOOOOOOP! –throws virtual confetti-_

_I didn't expect this to end up nearly as popular as the original; I figured I'd lose tons of readers if I even mentioned a rewrite. Doesn't seem like I lost that many, though, and I've even gained some new ones. All of you are amazingly amazingly epically awesometastic._

_Spar__: LOL I was expecting that from someone as soon as I typed the word "puppy" in the last chapter._

_waterpeach4__: Haha, I kinda just broke out of my previous writer's block all at once and now I can't stop writing xD So with any hope, many more chapters are on the way._

_austiles__: Thanks very much! :D I'm glad you stumbled across it while I was updating it regularly; I just got back to working on it a few days ago after a fairly long hiatus due to real-life being generally horrid. I'll keep the updates coming as quick as I can now, though, rest assured! xD_

_yvonna__: And you don't have to xP Gaaah, I forgot how much I missed writing all the time…_

_Shadowess 88__: Haha, I definitely snickered xD Reminds me of a rabbit my brother and I got; it was too young to figure out the gender, so we were trying to think of a gender-neutral, "generic" name for the time being… and ended up calling it Jen-Eric. It'd be Jen if it turned out to be female, Eric if it turned out to be male. I do miss that rabbit._

_Haha, maybe not permit her to, but… well… yeah, Katherine doesn't take well to being forbidden of doing things. And strangely, in the manga… the scene where Misa actually gives up her Death Note isn't there. It cuts from Misa begging to be killed, to Rem showing up in Light's room telling him that Misa gave up her Death Note. I'm going by the manga, so I had to sorta improvise and… well, you'll see. I could definitely see her trying, but it's hard to say how she would go about it; Rem goes off and finds a new owner for the Death Note, and Ryuk just sorta disappeared from the storyline. I always assumed that in the time he wasn't shown, he was terrorizing grocery stores by stealing all their apples. Seems Ryuk-ish to me, at least._

_Yay! I'm always paranoid of my replies and my own reviews being too long xD I feel like I'm inconveniencing someone by making them read my ramblings. :O I actually remember L doing that in the manga… I remember the frame, in fact, but have no idea what chapter it was in, or even what general point in the story. I think it was before the big investigation headquarters, when they were still back and forth between hotel rooms, but… yeah, this is going to bother me, so I'm going to be searching like crazy after I post this chapter xD Thanks for the review and the virtual L-chibis! x3 -sets them with chibis of her OCs and watches havoc ensue-_

_xxyangxx2006__: Haha, sorry! Amazing, you're not the first person I've had review me about getting into a similar predicament xD I guess my humor is serving its purpose. Thanks, and I fully intend to! :D_

_**Discactuslaimer**__: I don't own death note, nor do I own my own OCs as they own me, nor do I own the cactus._

_**Warning!**__ L confusion may have occurred in the writing of this chapter. Proceed with extreme caution._

_**OMGIT'SAQUOTE**__:_

"_Your friends seem mildly…"_

"_Strange?" L considered this; that was certainly an accurate word. "Then I guess you'll make a good addition. There's already the honest heister and Don Juan the con. You can be the defective detective."_

* * *

Katherine heard Matsuda pause mid-yawn, and was sure the rest of the investigation team was wide awake in an instant as well. The impact these few words had on the task force were immediate and strong—for such a young, sweet, cheerful girl as Misa to be saying things so cynical, so grave and so out of her wavelength was ludicrous. Katherine sighed, breaking the silence.

"No sense has come to her at all…" she muttered under her breath.

Aizawa caught what she said. "And what's that mean?"

Scowling at him, she crossed her arms. "Why does everything I say have to be a confession to you? I _mean_ Kira would have no way of knowing if she were to talk, and yet she's still keeping her mouth shut. It's senseless. She's torturing herself to protect Kira and there's absolutely no reason for it."

"Unless she knows for a fact that Kira is watching her."

Sighing, Katherine replied, "Aizawa-san, if _I_ were Kira, you'd be right near the top of my list. You're still alive. Therefore, I'm not."

"Kill me! Please, kill me now!"

Their attention was turned immediately back to the screen, where Misa was still demanding that an end be put to her suffering. "I heard she hasn't had any water in three day," Aizawa stated, and this was indeed true—Misa was refusing to eat or drink.

"Th… that's too much for a twenty-year-old girl," Matsuda said quietly. "She must be at her breaking point."

After a brief moment, L reached forward and pressed a button on the base of the microphone beside his computer. "Misa Amane. Can you hear me?"

"Yes…" she said, and added, for good measure, "Please, kill me now…"

"Does this mean that in the face of overwhelming evidence, you admit to acting as the second Kira and are giving up?"

"I… I don't know anything about that. I can't take this…" Her resolve, her certainty was breaking—she was visibly shaking now, her voiced slightly cracked. "I'd rather be dead…"

When L went on frowning thoughtfully, Katherine quickly grabbed up the microphone. Though she was unsure of how to turn off the distortion on the microphone, it was still possible that this might work—she wasn't fond of Misa, but she didn't want the girl getting killed for the sake of Light Yagami. "Misa, this is Katherine."

"What are you doing?"

She ignored L—there was no better time than now to employ the skill in acting, in lying that she had picked up from Al and Don over the years. "Misa—they're holding me hostage and I—I think they're going to kill me if you don't tell them what they want to know. Please, Misa, just _tell_ them. Tell them about Li—"

"No!" Misa yelled. "Just kill me! Hurry up and do it, I know you can do it right now!"

"_Misa…_" Katherine glanced only for a moment at Rem when she heard the slightly echoic voice speak up—there was a look of realization, of near terrified surprise in her rather feline eyes. "_Do you mean…?_"

"Yes… kill me."

"_You want me to kill you?_" The Shinigami was still in utter disbelief.

"I can't take it anymore… just please kill me."

"_Your death would be at the fault of Light Yagami. I'll kill him if you die._"

"They want me to tell you that no one has to die if you cooperate, Misa," Katherine said, pleadingly; L hadn't taken the mic away from her and she was going to try to make this work, before anything bad could truly happy. "_Please_, just do what they say. You'll be fine and so will _he_, so just tell them!"

"No… I… I was supposed to die _then_ anyway…" Misa said meekly.

"Then…" Katherine repeated to herself quietly.

"She must mean when her parents were…" For once, Katherine nodded in agreement with Aizawa, frowning at the girl on the screen with sympathy in her eyes. She hadn't known until recently what it was like to lose someone so close, and though Misa was partially, indirectly responsible, Misa would of course be grateful to Kira for killing her parents' murderer after he was acquitted, offer him any help in return for it. Similarly, if someone had aspirations to shoot Light in the back of his skull, Katherine would gladly supply them with the largest gun she could find. Her situation was none too different from Misa's, and though they were on opposing sides, Katherine had hardly any right to judge her for her actions.

"Poor girl… I actually feel sorry for her," Matsuda said.

"I'd be happy if I died while I was still young and pretty…" Misa said.

"_I'm sorry, Misa…. It's said that a human who possesses a death note will meet misfortune… if I had never dropped it…_"

"Just do it!" Misa yelled. "If you won't do it, then I—!"

The microphone was suddenly snatched away from Katherine. "Watari, please make sure she can't bite her tongue."

"Yes." Before Misa could finish her statement, the old man was there with a white rag to muzzle the blond with—while it created a barrier between her teeth to ensure she couldn't bite through her tongue and suffocate in her own blood, it also ensured they likely wouldn't be talking with the girl for quite some time.

"Is it possible that Kira is already attempting to silence her?" L asked, more to himself than anyone else in the team; with the shock they appeared to be in now, it was unlikely they would have been able to answer regardless.

Within moments, the laptop on the table before the detective returned to its regular screen.

* * *

"No movement?"

Katherine jumped, nearly falling off of her perch on the corner of the coffee table; she had been incessantly monitoring Misa since the uncooperative girl fell asleep an hour earlier, had insisted that L not let Watari turn the camera off—it would be surprising if she had blinked, for fear of missing something in the still and silent room. This was just the problem: the stillness. Nothing was moving. Misa of course wasn't, and Watari was staying off camera unless needed so there would be no obstruction in viewing. All this left was Rem.

When Misa was checked on an hour ago, Rem hadn't been there.

Sighing, Katherine glanced back at L. "If you sneak up on me like that again, I swear I'll shave your head next time you fall asleep."

L blinked—shave his head…? "Why?"

"There's the humiliation factor. And maybe then your head will reflect light and give me some warning before you go sneaking up on me."

"I will make a note not to sleep anymore."

Katherine turned her head to glare at the detective, a glare more induced by her drowsiness than by any real malice. Without flinching, he held out the cup of coffee she had requested when he left his chair earlier, a small spoon set inside the cup. She sighed, accepted the cup with a mumbled "Thanks," and turned back to watch the laptop screen—though there was still nothing new, L himself now saw; just the same view of Misa sleeping soundly in her restraints as before. A yawn escaped Katherine, and she unwittingly took a sip of the unsweetened coffee—coughing a little at the bitter taste, she set the cup down beside her as L reclaimed his chair.

"I wish we could just wake her up…" Katherine said with another sigh, this one more exasperated, as she reached for a small bowl of sugar cubes beside the laptop. She grabbed a few and dropped them into her coffee, and idly stirred it as she spoke. "If she forfeited her death note somehow, we'll know as soon as she wakes up. You lose all memories of your death note when you forfeit it."

"Is there any saying how much she will remember?"

"Not really. She might remember Light is her boyfriend, she might not. If they—" She nodded her head back at the rest of the task force, all sleeping soundly in their chairs or on their sofas. "—think I was lying about that, they'll probably be even more set on proving I'm Kira. Maybe not Mattie-kun, but Aizawa will, and Yagami definitely won't be happy I groundlessly accused his son _again_."

"Hopefully she will remember anything about the past month and a half that doesn't have to do with the death note or the second Kira. She considers Light-kun to be her boyfriend…" L began dropping the little cubes of sugar into his own coffee now. Katherine watched for a moment before looking back up at him. "As mundane as that is, it seems likely she might remember that much. Perhaps it won't be quite as clear will be when and how she met him. Furthermore, she will be much easier to make talk if she is not protecting Kira—I imagine it will be very easy to get what little she remembers out of her."

"She'll probably offer the information up front. I know Misa, she's going to think she was kidnapped by a stalker or something. And I guess she was, wasn't she?" L glanced over. "You are such a huge fan of hers, after all." L sighed quietly at her sarcasm, turning his attention back to the laptop, and Katherine snickered. "Anyway, that's all if Rem doesn't come back before Misa wakes up. Rem could just be off to tell off Light for getting Misa into this mess or something. We can't be positive she actually forfeited her death note yet." Frowning, Katherine added, "And even if she did and she offers up the information that she and Light have been dating, I doubt they'll care. They're too bent on having me as a scapegoat."

"Except for perhaps Matsuda-san," L said, stirring a few containers of creamer into the coffee cup now. "Though Matsuda-san is a bit—"

"If you call onii-chan an idiot then you're going to end up with hot coffee all over your face." She crossed her arms and surveyed him indignantly. "And if you _are_ suggesting his intelligence doesn't measure up while we're on this subject, does that perhaps mean you still consider me a suspect as well?"

"I didn't say Matsuda-san was an idiot, and my suspicions that you are Kira are at less than one percent," L said, relatively unperturbed. He took a sip of coffee now, frowned, and set it down to add a couple more sugar cubes. "You have no death note," he continued, "and therefore cannot kill anyone with one."

"I could have torn pages out of mine."

"I find that unlikely, but it is certainly possible. Three percent."

"W—you did that on purpose!"

"Did I?"

Katherine frowned at the detective. "You need to not hang out with me. You're picking up sarcasm and I don't like it." L frowned at himself as well—sarcasm _indeed_, and it had slipped out almost naturally. That was quite odd. Before he had a chance to thoroughly ponder this, Katherine added, "Would I have pointed it out if I was Kira?"

"If you were Kira, there is a possibility you could have pointed it out to deter suspicion from yourself, because of how unlikely it is that any criminal would point out evidence that would raise suspicion of them."

Come to think of it, this entire conversation was based in the general field of sarcasm—truthfully, he had very little to no reason to suspect Katherine of being Kira, if she had indeed saved them all from death at Kira's hands. Given L could now see at least two Shinigami from merely touching that strange notebook, he held very little doubt that Katherine had lied about any of it; it was simply too strange to make up. A notebook was one of the very last things L would have considered as Kira's means of killing.

"But I'm not that _smart_…" Katherine complained, interrupting his train of thought. She grabbed a couple containers of creamer from another small bowl on the laptop's table and began tearing the tops from them. "How could I attempt to trick you with something out of the range of my own intelligence?"

"You are intelligent; you are only adept at _acting_ as though you aren't on occasion, such as right now."

Katherine frowned. "But that jester-like spook following Light around _said_ he was Kira more than once! I'm sure you've heard it."

"Then there's a three percent chance you could be assisting Kira."

Katherine sighed. "I know, I know, I brought this upon myself, no complaining." She crossed her arms. "I don't think you suspect me, anyway."

"How would you be sure of that?"

"Very simple," she replied. "I haven't witnessed you attempt any sort of sarcasm, well-mannered or otherwise, with any other member of the task force. Therefore, it would seem you view me differently. Perhaps as a friend?"

A friend…. Was it really that simple? Was this some strange sort of trick, or perhaps further sarcasm? Still relatively new to sarcasm, as well as with associating with people other than Watari on the whole, it seemed possible to L that he simply might not recognize it if it was sarcasm—and indeed, he hadn't truly noticed that their entire debate had gone to nothing _but_ sarcasm until Katherine mentioned it. She was correct that this had never happened with Yagami or Aizawa, and given how little he really spoke to Matsuda it certainly hadn't happened with him. _Did_ this point to his considering her a friend? She was certainly friendlier with him than the rest of the task force was; they seemed to consider him something between a co-worker and a superior. Katherine had taken to poking fun at him shortly after her arrival, and at this point seemed to not even have any qualms about tackling him in the middle of the To-Oh campus (and she was complaining about him surprising _her_…). The fact that she had sacrificed a year of her own life just to ensure his safety certainly built upon her case, and—

"You're overanalyzing, aren't you?" L paused in his thoughts and looked over at her. "I can tell. You're chewing on your thumbnail—" So he was, and he instead reached for his coffee with that hand at this realization. "—and you only do that when you're really thinking about something. You do that for the Kira case, not something like this."

After swallowing another sip of coffee, he said, "There is a chance I do view you as a friend."

"You seem uncertain." She was smirking again, unsurprisingly. It had of course been based in sarcasm. "What's the percentage on that, detective?"

He paused for a moment, thought, and replied, "Eighty percent."

"Good enough. You don't suspect me, then. Unless of course you're only saying that to make me think I have your trust, so I'll be more likely to slip up." She pouted. "I don't want to be friends with a liar."

"Strange…" He received a questioning look in response. "I wouldn't consider your friends that are allied with the task force currently as honest."

"Well, _touché_, then," she said, smiling. "But they don't lie to _me_. Pat doesn't lie to anyone, actually. He's terrible at lying. He was caught robbing a bank once and he tried to tell them he was the night-shift vault-janitor, and he was only taking some of the money with him to be cleaned. That was quite a while back, though, he doesn't really get caught anymore."

"Your friends seem mildly…"

"Strange?" L considered this; that was certainly an accurate word. "Then I guess you'll make a good addition. There's already the honest heister and Don Juan the con. You can be the defective detective."

A small buzzing sounded before L could even begin to think of how to react to being called "defective," and Katherine looked down at her side. A moment later, she retrieved her cell phone from her pocket and checked the front screen. She sighed, flipped it open, and said, "It's after midnight, is this really that important?"

L tuned out the phone conversation, still contemplating the entire concept of friendship. If he had a friend before now, it would have to be Watari, though "friend" was an odd word for it; Watari had more or less raised him, was something more akin to a guardian. He was acquainted with others from the orphanage, but not excessively friendly with them. He had told Light only a few days ago that Light was his first ever friend, but really only as a ruse. Light was Hideki Ryuuga's friend, perhap's Ryuzaki's, but not L's—to L, Light was a suspect. In that case, Katherine should have been as well; logically speaking, there was still a very small chance she could be Kira, but he couldn't bring himself to regard it. Perhaps that was why she had asked him about this in the first place—though the slim possibility existed, L couldn't acknowledge it because thinking of a friend as a mass murderer would be difficult for any person.

"Geez…" The sound of a cell phone snapping shut issued from next to him. "You're not going to believe this." L looked over, head tilted very slightly. "Apparently I was being followed three days ago. Don _somehow_ found out about the plan regarding Misa. He knows where she is as well, there was a damn tracking device on the car she was carted away in. I suppose we should just be thankful he hasn't told Pat. He really _is_ a Misa fanboy and wouldn't stand for this sort of thing."

"Is there any reasoning behind this?"

"As I'm forbidden to give a whole lot of inside information on the case, they're still… keeping track of us. No more cameras or bugs, but there are other ways, I suppose. My guess on this one is he's been tailing Mogi-san. I instructed them to use sunglasses when they leave the house, at least. When Rem was going over the rules with me and I asked about the eyes, I remembered her mentioning that it's harder to see a name of a person whose eyes are obscured by sunglasses. You can only see it with sunglasses if you look at them head-on. I still advised them not to leave much, but I didn't really expect them to listen."

"I suppose he called to confront you about it."

"No, actually, just sort of casually mentioned he figured I'd be awake supervising Misa and he'd happened across some information he thought I might find interesting." She sighed. "Apparently my biological father is dead."

L frowned. "You mentioned not knowing your parents."

"I didn't. The only person who knew anything about them was Al, and it wasn't much. He never told me, anyway. This is the first I've ever heard of my father, actually. Don heard from Al that my father's name was Arthur, and my mother was the first victim in the serial murders in Ireland, but that they seemingly weren't married when I was born. He found a man that shared the same last name as my mother at the time she was murdered, a man named Arthur, on a list of inmates killed by Kira and looked into it. He'd been imprisoned for domestic violence. They apparently did get married at some point. He said he might have doubted it if the photographs of them he found didn't look like me." She scoffed and took a sip of her coffee. "Both my father and Don's were killed in the same group of prisoners. Kira targeted Limerick Prison at some point during that phase he went through with using inmates as test subjects."

She spoke indifferently enough, calmly enough, but still appeared perhaps a bit disconcerted by the news; this was the first time she had heard of this side of her parentage, and it was doubtful anyone would be thrilled with discovering their father was a lowlife criminal whose years had been cut short a few months earlier by yet another lowlife criminal.

And her mother… had been killed in the Ireland case? The first victim, she had said. He would have to look into that. It had undoubtedly been a taunt directed at McManerberry himself, a taunt that no one but him and the killer would have recognized—L had known only of two allies of his prime suspect, as only two of them were criminals with real identities. The third had been something of a surprise, this nameless girl, an orphan in all rights that had lived under the criminal assistance her entire life to make up for her lack of identity, so the first victim had appeared as random to L as the rest of them.

"What now?" L was chewing on his thumbnail, he realized—and so had Katherine. She laughed a little. "Don't think about it too much. I definitely won't be. I'm a little shocked right now, but I was more shocked finding out about my mother. She had actually been looking for me ever since he was arrested on the domestic violence charges. Right in the next town the entire time. I might've been easier to find if the orphanage had ever filled out papers on me. They'd just attach a runaway's file to me or any of the others like me when they needed to. It took almost being sent off to another country to convince my friends to help me run off. Don and Pat, at least. I talked them into not mentioning to Al until after the fact. Al would have made me go. Would've said it was a good opportunity. And it probably was, but I never would have seen him again. I wasn't going to be told the name of the place before I was sent there, apparently it was a really secretive orphanage for gifted children. I got accepted off of an IQ test. All I knew was the place was somewhere in Britain, and I'd never see Al or Pat or Don again if I went there.

"I know what the place is called now out of pure coincidence. I'm fairly sure of it, anyway. When we were trying to dig up information on you and Watari early on in our investigation, we managed to come across Watari's real name and identity. See…" She grinned guiltily before continuing, "we were going to use it as blackmail if you refused to let us help on the case, only in the absolute worst case scenario. We also found out he founded an orphanage in Britain for gifted and talented children quite some time ago, though that's the only information available on it aside from the name of the place. Only establishment of it's kind, really. Cutting edge. Definitely the only one in Britain, probably in most of Europe. Think it was called Wammy's House. Ironic, huh?"

"Very much so…"

"_Very_ much?" L looked over to see her smirking. "You go there or something?"

This was bad. This was very bad. His mind had somewhat blanked from the extent of the irony—how could that question be answered? She had no way of knowing, of course, but she would suspect it now. She had nearly been sent _there_, to what he had once called home, and his momentary lapse in thought had now all but blurted out that he _had_ in fact gone there, that the place had been built for the sole purpose of honing his own skills and training his eventual replacements. If he didn't answer, she would know. He wasn't authorized to answer truthfully; the identities of all persons that had attended Wammy's House for any period of time could not be connected with the orphanage itself. Lying outwardly would have been much too obvious.

Katherine smiled. "Don't worry," she said, interrupting his inward panic. "I'm not going to try to pester anything out of you."

L frowned at this. If this was some futile attempt at reverse psychology, then it was utterly childish—reverse psychology worked on small children, rebellious teenagers, not world-renowned geniuses. Then again, it was unlikely. The earlier shock was fading into mild paranoia, making her seem perhaps a little less trustworthy than normal. Truly, it was doubtful that she was attempting to get him to talk, more likely that she was only respecting the privacy of a friend.

"Don't hemorrhage your brain thinking like that. We sort of need it for the Kira case." And there was that sarcasm again, of course. She paused for a moment, and added, "I hope you don't think I'm trying to use reverse psychology. I know you probably consider that sort of thing to be child's play."

And on top of everything else, she was reading minds now. He sighed inwardly and picked up his cup of coffee again—it was already getting a bit tepid, so he finished it quickly before it had the chance to cool down entirely. He stared at the screen of the laptop, but didn't really _see_ it.

"You look confused." She sounded slightly entertained by this—of course she would be. Successfully stumping the world's greatest detective, it was some sort of _game_ to her, it seemed. Perhaps he did trust Katherine, perhaps she was a "friend," but letting down any walls, for friends or otherwise, was impossible. He wasn't permitted to expose his past, and wouldn't have regardless of whether it was forbidden; it was enough that someone aside from Watari or Roger knew his real name, whether he trusted her or not.

Katherine kept her eyes on L for a moment before once again looking back at the computer screen herself. His confusion was as entertaining, as cute as it ever had been, though it wasn't quite as fun this time; she had gone perhaps a little far in asking, even jokingly, about his past. It had slipped out before she properly thought about it, and it was now evident just how ironic it was that she had nearly gone to that orphanage—she had nearly ended up in the same place the world's most renowned mind had been trained, ran away from the opportunity, and was now sitting next to him monitoring a suspect in the world's most renowned murder case, as a coworker and friend to him. It was irony, perhaps even destiny if you believed in that sort of thing, at it's absolute best.

* * *

_If you read the original, you'll see that I changed that last scene up a good bit; I had meant to reveal this about Katherine early on in the original write-up of TKN, but neglected to for so long that there was nowhere sensible to even think about putting it._

_This also means that she did find Watari's real name, so we can assume he's not going to die. I couldn't bring myself to kill Watari. He's just too fantabulous._

_And, fantabulous is incidentally our new word of the day!_

_On that bombshell, I'm going to bed. I stayed up all night for the third night in a row writing, and I need a freakin' power nap before I pass out and fantabulously faceplant my keyboard._


	18. Guilt

_And that's five more reviews since the last chapter! -squeeee- Thanks everyone!_

_And I'm so sorry for the lack of update yesterday! D'x Ended up sick with a rather annoying stomach bug. Luckily it was only a twenty-four hour one and I made it up to you by (accidentally) making this chapter a thousand words short of the length of two of my average-length chapters. Which means, instead of around 3,000 words, it's over 5,000. But seriously, I had no intentions of it being this long O-o It just sorta happened._

_Stormygio__: Don't worry about it, I don't consider any review "late," I'm just happy to get them at all x3 I'm kinda late myself on this update anyway, so how much of a hypocrite would I be to judge you for replying a little "late"? :P_

_Shaddowess 88__: I know, I wasn't saying it didn't happen, believe me xD I just wanted to work with the fact that the investigation team wasn't monitoring her constantly at this point; after Misa was gagged to be kept from biting her tongue, they switched the video and audio off of her, so the investigation team wouldn't have seen the point at which she gave up her death note anyway._

_Who're we kidding? Of course he does! Just spell his surname backwards, you'll see. Buuut that's a joke that'll come into play in later chapters xD_

_Hmmmm she may ask him more eventually, but probably not this early in the story. She respects his privacy; she hadn't really meant to ask seriously about L's past, or at least hadn't thought about the result of doing so even jokingly before the question slipped out. Now L's mildly paranoid that other things could come out, and he can't have that happening, especially when it's not only his own identity at stake._

_Haha, I actually rather like Aizawa xP He just tends to not get along well with most of my OCs that he comes into contact with. Just like Matsuda tends to get picked on shamelessly in a lot of my fics, even though I actually adore him. I have a strange way of liking characters :P_

_austiles__: Thanks! :D Though you're going to hate the last couple scenes in this chapter. I know because I hated writing them. Dx But it lead to important growth in the whole romance side in the original write-up of the fic, so it ended up necessary. I almost wanted to discard it for my own selfish reasons of I-dun-wanna-write-this-again-D'x, but I managed to refrain. Sorry this update wasn't quite as fast :( I really really tried to finish it yesterday morning, but it just wasn't working with how terrible I was feeling._

_xxyangxx2006__: I speak of powernaps, my friend. I'm sure even the great L has to take them on occasion xD I'm a full-on insomniac most of the time myself, but even insomniacs pass out from pure exhaustion after a week or so xP And WOOO Insidious :D I actually rather enjoyed that one. It spooked me a bit, and since my writings that aren't fanfiction are generally horror I tend to be a difficult one to spook. I'm a bit of a horror-nerd :3 Watari __is__ amazing, and I do wonder where an inventor/orphanage founder learned sniping xD Maybe he was a special ops. assassin in a war sometime in the past or something. There just wasn't enough on Watari's past for my liking, he was too intriguing for me to just settle with him being L's associate/orphanage founder/inventor/epic sniper. And no worries about rambling! I like long ramble-ish reviews :)_

_**Disclaimer**__: I don't own anything. I don't feel like being creative, I typed too much for even me tonight Dx_

_**Warnings**__: Er… um… well… the last two and a half scenes made me sad, soooo… yeah._

_**Quoteables**__:_

"_So__," she continued, looking at the cackling phantom behind Light now, "where are you planning on getting apples while your person is confined?"_

_Ryuk stopped cackling quite abruptly, and looked at Light in a strange, grinning sort of terror._

* * *

"Please, Stalker-san, stop this. It's a crime. I promise I won't tell anyone if you let me go now!"

The investigation team had switched hotels that very morning; upon their arrival, and syncing back to Watari, the old man had informed them of a rather _interesting_ development when Misa had awoken—she no longer wanted to die. In fact, she was only just short of being back to her normal self. Though she was obviously distressed, she was quite indignant about speaking, and was hardly keeping her mouth shut for any amount of time. Furthermore, she now seemed to think that she had been kidnapped by a stalker.

"Stalker-san!"

"She's been repeating that since she regained consciousness?" Aizawa asked. L nodded briefly.

"Does she really think we're going to buy this?" Matsuda asked.

Aizawa and Matsuda were watching in a mix of disbelief and confusion; across the room, Yagami slouched in a chair, face half-covered by one hand, growing evermore impatient with the absurdity of it all. Katherine leaned against the fireplace next to the computer, and L sat in front of it in his usual manner, biting thoughtfully at his thumbnail as he observed the hysterical girl on the screen before him.

"Okay, then how about taking off the blindfold?" Misa asked. "I'd really like to see you."

Katherine bit her tongue. It was difficult not to laugh at just how suspicious Misa was making herself now that she _wasn't_ the second Kira anymore.

"Maybe you should ask her if she has a boyfriend, _Stalker-san_."

L shot a brief glare in her direction that no one else seemed to notice, and she snickered.

"Could you attempt to be serious about this?"

"You're serious enough to make up for me, Aizawa-san," Katherine assured him. Seriousness, in truth, would have been too much of her. Her fears from the previous night had indeed been realized—making light of the situation was really just a way to cope with it, and it helped that Misa was entertaining in and of herself at the moment.

"Matsuda-san," L said suddenly, interrupting the argument before it could begin, "call Mogi-san."

"Hmm—?" L was already holding out his hand for the phone. "Oh… right…"

Matsuda retrieved his own cell phone from his pocket, dialed, and handed the device immediately to L. After a moment, without bothering with a greeting, he said to the man on the other line, "When you apprehended Misa Amane, you did tell her she was suspected of being the second Kira?" L paused, listening. "Very well. Thank you, Mogi-san."

As L was handing Matsuda's phone back, Misa decided to start up again. "I'll give you an autograph and shake your hand—oh, I'll even give you a kiss on the cheek! I won't run away, I promise!"

After a brief moment of puzzling, L pressed a button down at the base of the microphone. "Misa Amane."

Misa perked up—as much as she could in her restraints, at the very least. "What is it, Stalker-san? Are you going to let me go now?"

"Before you went to sleep, you were almost completely silent. After some time, you began asking us to kill you, and fell asleep. Why have you changed your outlook so suddenly?"

"Wh… what are you talking about? You're the stalker who tied me up and brought me here! Why are you acting like this is an interrogation? Is this supposed to be some sort of weird game?"

"Why are you tied up right now?"

"H… huh?" Misa seemed to consider this for a moment. "I guess… maybe because I'm an idol? I didn't think any of my fans would go _this_ far, though…"

There was a silence throughout the room, as L pondered what to ask next, as Katherine wondered when he _was_ going to ask about her relationship with Light, as Aizawa and Matsuda continued to look on, as Yagami grew increasingly more frustrated with just how disappointingly this day had decided to start. It seemed no one was going to speak again, until—

"Stop joking around, Amane! This is serious!"

Misa shrieked—L leaned away slightly from Matsuda at the sudden outburst, and Katherine blinked a couple times before grabbing the sleeve of her "brother's" jacket and pulling him away from the mic. Matsuda still looked rather frustrated with the whole situation, but hopefully calm enough that no more outbursts would occur—he had already scared Misa to tears.

"S—scary… please stop this…. Let me go! Let me go… to the bathroom! Right! I have to go to the bathroom."

"It's been only four minutes since the last time you used the bathroom," L replied indifferently. "Please wait until we are done speaking."

"Well do you want me to do it here? You do, don't you! You _pervert_!"

Pervert…? L frowned, brow furrowing, and was hardly surprised to hear more snickering off to his right side. This was undoubtedly going to be brought up again at some point. "Amane…" L said, "let's seriously discuss some of the things we spoke about before you passed out. Do you know Light Yagami? Why did you approach him? We know you have met him several times—are you going to continue to deny this?"

"Eh? Of course I know Light, he's my boyfriend! Why are you asking about my boyfriend, Stalker-san?"

"Wh… what the…?" Katherine glanced at Matsuda, who's frustration with Misa was fading into confusion.

A buzzing sounded in the suddenly silent room, and L reached into his pocket to retrieve his own cell phone. "It's Light-kun." At this, Yagami stirred for the first time since they had begun speaking with Misa. "Turn off the visuals and audio," he instructed Watari. A moment later, the laptop screen had returned to its normal background. L flipped open his cell phone as Yagami was standing from his chair. "Yes? Yes… yes… I understand. We're in K-2801." L closed his phone at this.

"My son is coming?"

"Yes," L replied to Yagami. "He will be here shortly and will need someone to show him in."

"I'll do it." All eyes fell on Katherine at this. "We're almost out of coffee anyway, I was considering offering to go out and get some. I'd rather be out while Light-kun is here, if I'm totally honest. To avoid a repeat of last time."

"That should be fine," L replied. "Wait for Light-kun in the lobby, let him in immediately, and leave for the coffee."

"Will do."

Moments later, she was out the door with her messenger bag slung over her shoulder and a keycard in her pocket, L vaguely wondering what she was planning—normally Matsuda ran errands for the task force. She was cleared enough of suspicion that it was no problem, but it was still a bit on the strange side. If he went through with his plans, however, there was a possibility he might not find out precisely what she was up to.

* * *

"Hello, Light-kun. I've been instructed to let you into the hotel room." Light stopped a few feet from Katherine after getting out of his cab. "I'd like to ask what you're doing here first, of course. And why Rem has left Misa."

"So you did know about Rem." Katherine raised her eyebrows. "We can't talk about this here."

"The room is around the left side of this building, towards the back. Ryuzaki can't just look out the window and see when your taxi arrives. I suggest stepping around the right side. You can make up an excuse for what kept you. Traffic is always likely enough."

"What exactly is this about?"

"I've been doing some thinking lately." She crossed her arms, looking around briefly—no one was entering or exiting the huge hotel, no one really near them at that very moment. This was all a very long shot, but it would be worth a try at the very least. "I've been… thinking of switching teams. If you're interested, I'd be glad to explain. We'll have to make it brief, of course. The task force could get suspicious if you take too long showing up."

Light was silent as he contemplated the offer. After a very long moment, he nodded. "Fine. I'll listen."

"Good." Katherine turned and walked off to the right of the entrance. She heard Light following her, and that smart aleck Shinigami of his surprised her when he began to chuckle—she was so used to seeing the spook hovering around behind Light that she had barely noticed his pale, grinning face. When she glanced over her shoulder as she rounded the corner of the hotel, surely enough, he was flying behind the holder of his death note—his second death note, she assumed, as there was one hanging at his own belt. Did the King just offer them up another one whenever they wanted to wreak havoc upon humans? It was highly likely—no, almost definite that the murderer that had framed Al had been using one, and now Light and Misa had come into possession of death notes. It was a terrifying, nearly sickening thought that this sort of thing was allowed. If they had a King, they had to have rules, guidelines, even a purpose for existing—_was_ it their purpose to ensure the human world was never too peaceful?

"This should be fine." Katherine stopped and turned around at the voice behind her. "Now what are you talking about? I would have assumed you were even more devoted to Kira's downfall since your friend was killed."

Katherine ignored this for the time being. "Not planning on introducing me to your friend here?" she asked, nodding at the grim figure. "Not very polite of you."

"Fine. This is Ryuk. Now tell me how you can see him."

"I'm getting there." She crossed her arms. "See, you picked up a death note he was in possession of—my guess, anyway. I'm going to assume for the sake of conversation that it's accurate. I picked up a rather more special death note—"

"_**You're**__ the human that got the King's notebook four years ago?_" Katherine nodded at the amused Shinigami, who burst out laughing—it seemed this _was_ just a form of entertainment for him after all. "_Whoa. This just keeps getting better._"

"Seems Ryuk's got it. In effect, I can see any Shinigami in the human world. Rem just happened to be the one that was sent to tell me about the rules, but she didn't stick around since she wasn't the one that dropped it. My Shinigami likely would have been the dropper, but he was unfortunately executed for losing it."

"And this death note?"

"Is safe," she replied. "I don't keep it with me and I've never killed with it." Ryuk was still snickering—undoubtedly he knew that her death note could do a bit more than kill. There was no need for Light to know that, and she wasn't talking if Ryuk wasn't. "I'm also not telling you where it is, as I guess you won't be telling me where yours is."

Light remained mostly expressionless. Perhaps there was a bit of suspicion, but nothing else aside. "Yet you've had a sudden change of heart," he said. "Why?"

"In short… I guess Kira sort of liberated me by killing Al. Al was the only person I ever trusted, and he's gone. My _friends_, were actually more his than my own. For all I know, the only reason they ever bothered with me was because they knew Al would kill them if I was ever harmed. There's every chance now that they could abandon me, at any moment. I can't depend on them. They're criminals, they have no real ties to me, and I can't trust them. You've done me a huge favor in showing me this, Light-kun. I would be happy to return the favor and act as a spy within the investigation team. I don't have much information yet, unfortunately, as they don't all trust me quite yet. Al, he wasn't a murderer. He was framed, in fact, by another death note user. He was a con artist, and a damn good one. I've learned a lot from him. I can make the task force trust me and use it to help you ruin them from within."

"Alvin McManerberry was a highly renowned conman…." Katherine nodded in agreement. "You claim you've learned from him." The suspicion was definitely evident now; his eyes had narrowed slightly. This was going just as expected.

"So how do you know I'm not using what I've learned on you, right?" She smirked. "You don't. That's your gamble, my friend. I could be a pretty valuable asset, couldn't I? I can see other Shinigami. I'm also very familiar with Misa already. I'm already working with the task force, and because I'm not really connected to Kira, because there's too much evidence pointing to the fact that I'm not, they can't accuse me on any real grounds. And you _definitely_ don't want someone with no identity working against you, I would assume. Rest assured, whether you agree or not, I'll be working on your side. All I want to know is why you're here today. I only fear it will look suspicious with Misa's sudden change in behavior."

"You can't do anything about it whether you're lying or not, so it doesn't really matter." He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket, once again poker-faced, unperturbed. "I'm going to inform Ryuzaki that I may be Kira and have him place me in confinement. I'll give up my death note from there."

"So you'll be proven innocent while confined?"

"Yes. In the meantime, someone else that even I don't know about will be working as Kira."

"That where you've sent Rem to?" Katherine asked.

"Or Ryuk."

"And potentially risk losing all your progress thus far so he can amuse himself?" Katherine shook her head. "I've only seen how Ryuk acts around you a few times and I know he's not loyal enough for you to trust him with something like that. I'm sure you're aware as well. Rem, however, is very interested in Misa's welfare, and would gladly do it to ensure that Misa remains safe."

After a moment of surprised silence, Light smirked. "You're not as foolish as you've been acting."

"All the more reason to be wary of me. Your choice whether you decide to trust me. I'll be working on your side either way, as I said. _So_," she continued, looking at the cackling phantom behind Light now, "where are you planning on getting apples while your person is confined?"

Ryuk stopped cackling quite abruptly, and looked at Light in a strange, grinning sort of terror.

* * *

"'Lo?"

Katherine paused, her eyes fixed on the red light she was stopped at in her car. She was quite positive she had called Don's phone rather than Pat's. She pulled it from her ear for a moment and checked the name on the screen—indeed, she had called the right contact. She placed it back to her ear. "Er… Pat?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you possibly hand Don his phone?"

"As soon as you tell me what's going on with Misa, sure."

Inwardly, Katherine was swearing like a sailor; had Don told him? "What do you mean?"

"I mean I overheard the phone call last night. Something about Misa being confined."

"Well, you know _why_ already, I'm sure. You'd better not go breaking her out or anything." As long as he knew, there wasn't really any harm in going on. "Light's about to be confined as well. I used the excuse of going and getting coffee to get out and call. I told him I was on his side before I let him into investigation headquarters and convinced him to tell me why he was there; he's going to be telling L he _might_ be Kira, you see, and to confine him. And while he's confined, he's giving up his death note, and Rem, Misa's Shinigami, is delivering her death note to someone else that will act as Kira while Light is confined, to show that Light can't be committing the murders."

"Are you bloody _serious_?" Pat groaned. "This means—"

"We're going to end up having to start all over, right. If no one can dig up concrete evidence on him before he gives up his death note—which we _won't_ be able to, as there _is_ none—we're pretty well fucked." The light went green, and she toed the gas pedal. "He didn't give me any information on who might be getting it. He says he doesn't even know, but I'm sure he gave Rem _some_ sort of instructions. In short, he and Misa _aren't_ Kira and the second Kira after confinement is over. They'll have been proven innocent. I have no doubt that Light intends to get his death note back after some time, but… well, he didn't tell me much. Just the bare minimum. I'd be worried if he _did_ trust me straight away, to be honest."

"What's his… er… shini…er… shinigami…?"

"I don't know. I guess he'll be going back to the Shinigami realm until further notice. Now, do I have your word that you're not going to track Misa down and break her out of confinement?"

"Er… yeah."

"Pat, really. I mean it. You go doing something like that—the task force doesn't really know you, and she's a second Kira suspect. What do you think they'd think?"

"I'm not going to!" he half-yelled. "Jesus… I just don't like it, I suppose, but I'm not going to do anything that bloody stupid. You can't have expected me to be all right with it."

"Yeah, that's why I hadn't told you. Didn't tell Don, either, he found out on his own time."

"Still don't see why she can't be let go if she isn't the second Kira anymore…"

"No one else _knows_ that for a fact—"

"I know, but it's still not fair. I mean, does she even know why she's in confinement now? It's inhumane. And _illegal_."

"You're one to criticize about something being illegal. And we tried telling her why, thank you very much, but she _still_ thinks she was abducted by a stalker."

"Poor girl…"

"No pitying the second Kira."

"But she's _not_ anymore—"

"But she _was_, and undoubtedly will be again." When Pat remained silent on the other end, Katherine sighed. "I understand how you feel. I don't _want_ her to be the second Kira. I'm not exactly… er… fond of her, but I still don't want to think of her as a killer. We can't let any feelings get in the way, though. They're murderers. Whether they remember it or not doesn't matter, because they _are_, and we've got to bring them down before they can ruin anyone else's lives. Now, really, why do you have Don's phone?"

"Oh," he said with a laugh, "took it and locked meself in my room when I happened to see the call ID so I could ask about the situation with Misa. He was denying it." Katherine rolled her eyes.

"I'm back at the hotel now, I'll call one of you again as soon as I have more information. _Sayonara_."

"W—who?"

"Come on, you don't even know _sayonara_? How have you managed to live in Japan for months now and not even picked that up?"

"Er… it means 'bye,' right?"

Sighing dramatically at her friend, Katherine said, "Bye, Pat," and shut her phone, grinning a little as she pulled into a parking spot in front of the large hotel. Putting the car in park and taking the keys from the ignition, she grabbed the bags of coffee off of the passenger seat and got out, and engaged the lock on her door before closing it behind her. How they managed to go through so much coffee in such a short period of time was beyond her—there were indeed five of them, but they still all had to be consuming twice the average amount of stuff.

Staring thoughtfully into one of the bags, she accidentally collided with someone near the entrance door of the lobby. She stopped and looked up to apologize—but her brow furrowed, and she was instead left saying, "Mattie-kun? What're you doing out here?"

"Er—I—ah—" He looked nervously off to the side and said something so quickly she didn't catch it, nothing but the name Ryuzaki.

"Wh… what was that? Slow down a little."

"R—Ryuzaki told me to take your keycard." Her eyes widened. What was _that_ supposed to mean? "He… er… he figured you'd take it better coming from someone you got along with so he sent me instead of Aizawa or Chief."

"I'm… I'm sorry, Matsuda, I'm not following." Or if she was, she certainly didn't _want_ to be following.

"Well, he sort of said he wasn't sure… he—he wasn't sure we could trust you and—w—well, he said you might be let back on the team, but right now isn't… I don't know, it didn't really make much sense to me. I know Aizawa doesn't trust you and Chief is just being cautious, but you've helped a lot in the investigation, so I don't see what Ryuzaki means…."

So everything the previous night had been a lie, just a load of bull undoubtedly designed to make her a little less suspecting of what was to come. Though every word of it made her want to yell, to swear aloud, to cause _some_ sort of a scene, Matsuda looked so apologetic and guilt-stricken about having to tell her any of it that she held it back for now. It wasn't Matsuda's fault that this had happened, and it certainly wasn't his fault that L had decided to send someone else to tell her like a coward. Always hiding behind others, of course—that was what he did. That was how he solved cases, and of course it was how he would deal with something of this nature.

Taking a deep breath, and letting it out as a sigh, she took the keycard from her pocket and held it out. "I'm sorry the bastard put you up to this, Mattie-kun," she said as the card was taken from her. "I doubt he has any idea how big of a mistake he's making. I've procured some valuable information on the case that I'm sure he'd be interested in."

"You—you have? Maybe I should tell him before—"

"Nope. My guess is he's really kicking me out because I don't have any more valuable information." Her fists clenched, so she crossed her arms to hide this. "Because I'm useless without Al backing me. You can tell him I have information, but I'm not waiting to leave until you do. He wants me gone, then it's his own loss." She smiled. "See you around." She turned. "And tell him he can go buy his own damn coffee."

* * *

Matsuda was very silent about setting the keycard down on the table beside L's laptop, save for a sigh—it was quite evident he hadn't enjoyed the task L had given him, and for once L could hardly blame him. He had thought of waiting until tonight, offering the real reasoning, but there was a risk of anyone else on the investigation team hearing—just as there had been a risk of the very same thing the previous night. He had left his reasons for this very vague when explaining it to the investigation team, and even vague, they had been lies. It was a matter of trust, most certainly, but that was the only truth.

Too much trust, rather than too little, was precisely the problem. Letting things slip wasn't something he could afford to do, and he had the previous night—what's to say she wouldn't inadvertently get even more information out of him?

"Er… she said she has information." L ceased chewing his thumbnail and glanced over at Matsuda, who was looking more than uncomfortable. "She didn't say what it was."

"Just a ruse to get back on the task force," Aizawa said dismissively. "You seem to forget who she works with. Even if she hasn't done anything herself, she's probably picked up some tricks from that McManerberry guy."

"I don't know… she wouldn't wait downstairs for me to come back up and tell you guys," Matsuda said. "She just said that she didn't care if I mentioned it or not. I told her what Ryuzaki said, but she thinks she's being let go because we don't need her anymore since she didn't have any information we needed."

"Well, to be truthful, she didn't," Yagami said. "She told us what her side had deduced on the second Kira, and it was helpful, but she had nothing else that could have furthered the investigation at the present. I'd personally prefer not to work with criminals unless absolutely necessary."

"But she helped with catching Misa—"

"Who suddenly doesn't seem to know anything," Aizawa pointed out.

L managed to tune out the debating for the time being—he had expected it, especially between Matsuda and Aizawa. The latter had very few questions when L told them his intentions regarding her. Matsuda had been nothing but _why_'s and _that doesn't make any sense_'s, but L had eventually convinced the man to go downstairs and wait for her to arrive, anyway. It was regrettable now even more than then; he had convinced himself she would understand the reasoning—that it was impossible for L to have friends that he trusted enough to reveal confidential information to—but she seemed to be under the impression, undoubtedly out of anger, than she was being let go of because she wasn't needed.

He should have waited to discuss it with her, perhaps, but speaking with her alone now worried him, and not only because he did hold some strange trust in her; she seemed to find befuddling him mildly entertaining, and any person was more likely to give away information when confused. It was too dangerous, not only to him but to everyone at Wammy's. He couldn't take that sort of a risk, even for a friend.

He kept a watch on Light and Misa's cameras—Misa's audio was currently muted, as she had gone back into hysterics over being kidnapped by a stalker again—and silently contemplated, chewing on his thumbnail. Guilt was sinking in, and it wasn't a feeling he entirely liked.

* * *

_Slam_.

Stomping sounded through the back of the house, and a moment later, Katherine was standing in the doorway between the dining room and the living room. Don had paused reading through a few papers and frowned at her in mild confusion when she appeared there. "Where's Pat?" she asked.

"In the old surveillance room working on hacking the link between the camera on Misa and L's—" A yell of outrage and horror sounded from the next room. "L's computer," Don finished. "Sounds like he was successful. What're you doing here?"

"We're _really_ back to square one now. Bloody bastard kicked me out."

"What for?"

"Some shite about my not being trustworthy. I think it's more likely I outlived my usefulness." She walked into the living room and dropped the bags onto the table. "'Ere, have some coffee. I decided against donating it to the investigation team if they were too good for any other help from me." Falling heavily into the chair by the front door, she gave a sigh. "This is positively ridiculous. First there's going to be a new Kira, now we're not even getting inside information."

"Yeah, heard about the new Kira from Pat already," Don said. "Misa's Shinigami is going to be—"

"I don't fecking _believe_ this!"

"—delivering her death note to someone else," Don finished as Pat was stomping out of the door of the surveillance room.

"Have either of you _seen_ this?" he demanded.

"Nice to see you as well," Katherine mumbled, crossing her arms.

"I told you, ya shouldn't of bothered," Don said, shaking his head. "And now look at you."

"She's—she's—no _wonder_ she thinks some perverted bloody stalker kidnapped her, that's exactly what it _looks_ like happened! It's—wait, what're you doing here?"

Katherine rolled her eyes. "Thanks for noticing. I was fired because I'm no longer of any use to the task force. And Misa was restrained in that manner because it was more likely that she would crack and give up the information we were looking for that way. It's pointless now with her death note gone, but no one else _knows_ it's gone aside from L. Mind working hacking into the cameras on Light as well?"

"I was planning on it," Pat said, over his initial bout of anger and already starting to become rather glum. "Just… y'know, I—"

"I know. She'll probably be out soon enough, little information as she's been giving up."

"What about the task force?" Katherine looked at Don. "Are we going to keep an eye on them again?"

"I don't even want to bother with them. We can do this our own way."

Katherine looked towards the wall as Pat went back into the surveillance room to work on linking to Light's camera and audio, and likely grumble under his breath about Misa and the inhumanity that had been done to her while doing so. This all bothered Katherine severely—she should have been happy to work with Pat and Don again. She was, but it just didn't seem she was happy enough about it. She had most definitely missed them through the entire investigation, but there was something missing _here_ now, something even aside from Al.

The task force… investigating with them had been different, and even enjoyable in its own respect. It would be strange now, investigating without breaking into an argument with Aizawa every five minutes. Yagami, she had even gotten in the habit of calling him "Chief" on occasion, barely aware she was doing it when she did. And who in the world was going to defend poor Matsuda from the complete bullies he was working with?

That wasn't even the half of it, and she knew it—knew it but wouldn't admit it to herself, because she had no intention of missing that disorderly insomniac, with that irritating habit of biting his nails, those dark circles that could have been mistaken for eyeliner at a glance, that hair that looked like it had never seen a brush and probably hadn't seen scissors in some time either, his ridiculous attempts at sarcasm—no. It was his fault she was gone, and she woudn't miss _him_. She wouldn't even think about him, her one-time friend that had turned out to be no sort of a friend at all, turned out to be a damned liar. Pat and Don were the only people she could trust—she wouldn't make the mistake of thinking otherwise ever again.

Glaring at the wall, it was hard to keep up this lie even to herself, but she would push it on her own mind for as long as she could, until she hopefully believed it.

* * *

_Don't kill me! Please! I promise this development isn't permanent! PROMISE!_

_I need to stop doing things that might make my readers mad at me D'x  
_

_The word of the day is swinker! ...which means "laborer," as I now know, but the word itself made me giggle before I knew what it meant.  
_

_Just a random bit of info before I go: At this point in the original writing of TKN, at chapter 18, I had just reached over 5,000 hits. At chapter 18 of the rewrite, we're currently over 8,500 views :) Because you guys are just awesometastically fantabulous._

_**One more thing!**__ Does anyone have any horribly extreme objections to me changing my penname to CommaLlama? It's currently my penname on all my other writing sites, and I just kinda feel odd about it being different on ff-dot-net._

_On that bombshell, I's be offs to get a start on the next chapter, since it's going to be relatively more cheery than this one._


	19. Caffeine

_Wooo! Chapter would have been done hours ago, but I ended up getting pulled out of my room for nerd-time. i.e. watching __The Gamers: Dorkness Rising__ and working on my character sheet for a D&D campaign I'm starting Tuesday. In fact, once I finish posting this chapter, I'm going to be right back to finishing my character sheet. That's right, I'm a tabletop gamer. My nerdiness knows absolutely no bounds._

_At least today didn't turn out as crap as I expected it to after learning the opening night for the final HP movie was last night—well, yesterday morning, midnight, you know what I mean. -depressed Harry Potter fangirl sob- -doesn't get to see new movie in theaters for second year in a row-_

_On a happier note, we've broken ninety reviews! –throws moar confetti-_

_Stormygio__: Poor Matsu indeed :( I hope I made it up to him by giving him a little of the limelight in this chapter._

_u n c a n n y obscurities__: Haha, I've been on a severe updating kick lately xD An update almost every day for nearly the past week. Basically, I got past a really difficult scene I'd been stalled on for quite a long long time and took off. I'm very glad you like the story thus far, and even happier you approve of the OCs! They mean quite a bit more to me than they probably should… they're the main reason I ended up rewriting this fic, honestly, because I either gave some of them too much focus or some too little. And I have noticed that in other Death Note stories; if your writing in L's point of view, his rationalizations are rather important. He's pretty much constantly thinking in the manga, so I'd feel odd doing things any differently in my writing, I guess. Thanks for the review, and once again, glad you've enjoyed the story! :D Expect regular updates, and feel free to bombard me with PMs if I suddenly stop; pestering really does make me write more often :P_

_Shadowess 88__: Hmmm, well that's a problem Katherine has; her pride isn't going to let her give up her anger with L very easily, and anger does most certainly get in the way of reason. It might take her talking with L himself to let go of the anger and realize exactly why she was let off of the team. Light… likely will remember that she was a representative at To-Oh, used criminal means to get onto the Kira case, and that she was a Kira suspect herself. So there's going to be very little trust there. But, this opens up the possibility of Ryuk showing up and pestering Katherine for apples or something at some point, since she's going to be the only person that can see him (aside from L, who I leave out because Ryuk isn't entirely aware of that) once Light relinquishes ownership of his Death Note. Shinigami can spend a limited amount of time in the human world when they're not attached to a human, they just can't hang out indefinitely. That's the gist of it, at the very least._

_Signora Ted__: Actually, I do remember you! WOO someone that read the original! x3 I'm glad you think this one has improved tenfold, as that was my whole purpose for rewriting. Haha, I'm glad that I got their nationality so well and that the ridiculous amounts of research I did weren't in vain—I'm to the point that I could probably even navigate the county their from. I tend to go a little crazy with research…. Haha, no worries, the fluff tends to pick up… well, in the next chapter or the one after that, actually. Didn't realize I was so close to it. I do hope I do all right with it this time around O-o I've been out of the romancey genres for a while, so I'm just a tad bit nervous about it. D'aaaaawwwwwww, no CommaLlama for me. Since "Bloodstained CommaLlama" just seems a bit extra-demented xD Maybe eventually. I'll hold onto Bloodstained Comma for now._

_fezzesandbowtiesarecool__: Sorry! xD I have been updating a bit quickly lately. Glad you enjoyed the chapter, though, and thanks! :D_

_**Discshapedclam**__: I don't own Death Note, or a death note, or a shinigami (well, unless you count a couple Shinigami OCs, one of whom hasn't been used anywhere but in RPing…), or my OCs, and while I don't even own this disclaimer. Good enough? No one better file a lawsuit._

_**Warnings**__: Caffeinated Matsu?_

_**Quoteyquotequote:**  
A moment later Matsuda was out the door, and L spoke up. "Is there any reason Matsuda-san is suddenly so interested in coffee?"_

_Aizawa shook his head. "This is Matsuda we're talking about. He defies reason."_

* * *

Aizawa and was awoken quite suddenly on the night of the fourth of June—or perhaps the early morning of the fifth—by something rather odd, unexpected, and decidedly unwelcome. Having tried to turn and go back to sleep in his chair, Aizawa had been pushed to a small table, chair and all, and had a cup of coffee set in front of him. Rubbing his eyes, he watched, groggy and slightly mystified, as Matsuda joined him, looking much too awake.

"We might not have much time, L just dozed off in front of the computer—"

"Someone should be watching the monitors then—"

"I checked, they're all asleep," Matsuda said waving a hand. "This is important anyway. Have you—" He glanced shiftily back at L—still asleep, strangely in the same position he normally chose to sit in. This was good. "Have you noticed," he said, keeping his voice low, "that we've been getting more work done than Ryuzaki lately?"

Aizawa raised an eyebrow, now picking up the cup in front of him. "I… guess. He's been a little less efficient—what's this about? You should be asleep, you're normally out before eleven."

"I drank a lot of coffee, and I'm getting there. You noticed he's been kinda zoning out a lot, right? And chewing on his fingernails a lot more than usual, and it doesn't seem like it has anything to do with them," he said, looking back at the computer, "because he hasn't even been interrogating them as much as he normally would."

"Yeah, that's… a little strange, I guess. He hasn't seemed like he's really watching them half the time." Aizawa almost gagged at his first sip of coffee—there was just a bit too much sweetener in it. "Sort of looking off to the side until we try to get his attention on something."

"Okay," Matsuda said, nodded. "How long have you noticed it for?"

"I dunno. Few days. Almost a week, maybe."

"Four days."

"That… seems like a good estimate, but why does it—wait." He lowered the cup of coffee, eyeing Matsuda suspiciously. "_Wait_ a minute. You're implying something I don't like."

"I… am?" Matsuda frowned, looking somewhat akin to a scolded puppy.

"You are, because the best thing that ever happened to this investigation happened four days ago, and we _aren't_ reversing it."

"I could have been talking about Chief being confined…"

"But you weren't," said Aizawa, quite certainly. "We already established that he's really only been paying half attention to the monitors on Amane and Chief and Light-kun. That alone implies that it probably doesn't have anything to do with them. Light-kun and Chief were confined on the same day we got rid of _her_, but if it doesn't have to do with either of them, then there's only one other significant thing that happened six days ago that it might have to do with. You're suggesting we try to talk Ryuzaki into letting her come back, and I'm sorry, but you're on your own there. I'm not interested, and I'm going back to—"

"No!" Aizawa paused from standing to drag his chair back to its previous location. "I know _you_ don't like Katherine-san, but this doesn't have anything to do with you, it's because of Ryuzaki. Katherine-san is stubborn, so she's not going to call begging to come back. We already know Ryuzaki is stubborn, and now he can't even focus on the investigation. I think they'd actually gotten to be friends and I think _that's_ the only reason she got kicked off the team in the first place."

"Why do you think that?" Aizawa asked skeptically—though he did sit back down. "Ryuzaki _said_ he was friends with Light, but I'm even thinking that was probably a lie. If he still suspected Light of being Kira, then he would have lied to get closer. Ryuzaki just doesn't seem like the type to mix friends and work."

"Not intentionally. That's _why_ he kicked her off of the task force. When he realized it, he realized it could get in the way of his investigation, but Katherine-san being gone is distracting him way more than her being here ever was. If you think about it, it really does make sense. I've been thinking about this for the past four days."

"I guess it _would_ start to make sense if you've been trying to convince yourself for that long." Matsuda frowned. Of course, he had expected something sarcastic. Better to ignore it, he supposed, than it would be to snap back that Aizawa only hated her because she had better comebacks. But then, Aizawa sighed. "All right, all right… I don't _want_ to admit that you have a point…" Matsuda grinned, somewhat smugly. "But you do. It still doesn't seem like there's anything we can do about it—you pointed out already that they're both equally stubborn. How do you expect to get either of them to budge?"

"I'm going to make an excuse to get out today so I can call Katherine-san. She likes me, so I might be able to talk her into it better than either of us could talk to Ryuzaki about it."

"Just convincing her won't be enough," said Aizawa, and he took another drink of the too-sweet coffee. "Even if she wants to come back, Ryuzaki's going to have to agree to it."

"Well… if he's not happy about her being gone, he might be a little quicker to agree, right?" Matsuda offered.

"I really doubt it." He leaned forward in his chair, looking thoughtful. "He's probably trying to convince himself that he's perfectly happy about his decision. That's probably a huge part of what he's doing when he's been zoning out. If anything, that might make it even harder for us to convince him."

"But not for Katherine-san," Matsuda disagreed. "If she'll just call him, then she can probably talk him into it. And even if she says she won't, it's worth a try, right?"

"Well, you're going to need to work on your reason for going out."

"Oh, I already drank most of the coffee. I've just got a few more cups to finish off and it'll be gone, then I can go out and get more later." Aizawa stared at Matsuda in disbelief. "Wh—what?"

"Why didn't you just dump some of it if that's what you were planning?"

Matsuda opened his mouth to reply, and stopped, thinking. "Er… I like coffee."

A hand came to Aizawa's face, and he sighed in slight exasperation; just when he thought maybe his coworker was showing some signs of intelligence, he goes and proves that it was just one of those one time flukes. "Fine, drink all the coffee. It might make you look more suspicious, though."

"L keeps track of the coffee, though. If I didn't seem like I'd drank all of it, then he might have suspected I had dumped some of it. But that's got me worried, too." Matsuda frowned. "I don't feel much different that usual even _with_ all that coffee, so he might think I did anyway." Observing for a moment, Aizawa noticed that Matsuda was twitching rather more than normal for anyone, and also seemed to be blinking quite rapidly. Aizawa shook his head.

"I think he'll know you drank all of it."

"Really?"

"Yeah. And I'm going back to sleep." Aizawa stood and moved his chair back to its previous location. "As long as you're awake, you should take over watching the monitors."

"And drink more coffee?"

"Yeah, sure."

As it turned out, there had been a little more coffee left than Matsuda had expected—around two hours after Aizawa had awoken (L had stayed asleep for under an hour and had been awake long before Aizawa), there was half a bag left, sitting next to the coffee maker, and Matsuda was pacing the investigation room, looking particularly edgy and unstable. He had just downed what he was fairly sure would be his last cup, and L had just risen from interrogating Misa to pour a cup. He paused at the coffee maker sitting upon a nearby end table, with a single open bag of coffee grounds sitting beside it.

It made sense why Matsuda was behaving even more erratically than normal this morning, then. As he took his seat at the laptop again, cup of coffee in hand, he said without glancing at him, "Matsuda-san, I would like to ask that you refrain from drinking all of the coffee in the future."

"C—coffee?" Matsuda ceased his pacing. "Oh, yeah, coffee. Sorry. I like coffee."

"Then you won't object to replacing what you drank last night."

"You want me to go out and get more? I can go out and get more. I was planning on going out and getting more anyway. I really feel like going out, I never realized how small this hotel room is. Does anyone else think this room is small? We should really get a bigger one next time. Do you think we should—"

"Just go buy more coffee, Matsuda!" Aizawa cut in irately. This was a terrible idea if he had ever heard of one.

"Okay."

A moment later Matsuda was out the door, and L spoke up. "Is there any reason Matsuda-san is suddenly so interested in coffee?"

Aizawa shook his head. "This is Matsuda we're talking about. He defies reason."

* * *

Katherine awoke, a little groggily, to the sound of her cell phone ringing. It had been some time since she had gotten such a full night of sleep, but she was paying for the methods through which she had gone to achieve it—her eyes came to focus on a whiskey bottle on her nightstand with a shot glass beside it; and stacks of papers that undoubtedly had something to do with Kira were scattered over the other side of the bed, though for the life of her she couldn't recall anything she had read the night before. Her head was aching, pounding, and her stomach already giving her hell just at the small movements of sitting up and grabbing her phone from next to the bottle.

She frowned at the name on the caller ID before flipping the phone open and holding it to her ear, forcing herself to speak in Japanese, though nothing was coming to her mind very easily.

"Yes?"

An energized voice immediately answered her. "We need you back on the task force."

Katherine yawned, holding the phone away from her, and the lurch her stomach gave made her stop mid-yawn. "This really isn't the best time, Mattie-kun…."

"I don't have any other time to call, though, I'm out getting more coffee right now and I can't call in the hotel room because Ryuzaki never leaves and—"

"Slow down, geez… what'd you do, drink all the coffee so you'd have an excuse to go out?" On the other end, Matsuda was silent. "You did, didn't you?"

"There's… still enough left to make a couple pots of coffee. That's besides the point. We need you back. Ryuzaki hasn't been focusing on the case, _Aizawa and I_ have been getting more work done than him, he's zoning out all the time for no reason. We think he—"

"I really don't want to hear about Ryuzaki, I've got enough of a headache right now." She lay back in bed, arm slung over her eyes to block the sunlight that had snuck past her curtain from burning them out of her skull. "And I'm _glad_ he feels guilty. I might consider coming back if _he_ calls and asks for me back. From what you've said, I'm guessing you were hoping you wouldn't have to talk to him."

"Er… yeah."

"I can't say I blame you," she said, sighing. "I miss you and Chief. I even sort of miss afro-cop, honestly. But I'm going to be stuck missing someone regardless of where I am, since Pat and Don aren't allowed in contact of the task force, so it doesn't make much difference to me. If Ryuzaki doesn't make up his own mind that he wants me to come back, then I'm not coming back—if he doesn't want me back, that'd mean me calling him begging, and I'm not going to beg that sociopathic insomniac for _anything_."

"Well, we think he wants you back," Matsuda said, "but we also think he's trying to convince himself he doesn't want you back because he doesn't like being wrong or… well, something like that."

"Matsuda, you're bordering cardiac arrest. No more drinking that much coffee in one sitting, okay?"

"So you're going to come back if he asks you to come back?" Obviously a subject change was _not_ in order—coffee seemed to focus the normally scatterbrained investigator. Katherine sighed.

"If he decides to admit to himself he was wrong, then yes, sure, I'll come back. If he can admit to himself that I'm not as useless as he seems to think. Just do me a favor and tell him he's a stupid shitehawk when you get back."

"A—but I can't."

"Why not?"

"He doesn't know I'm calling!"

"You don't have to tell him I said it."

"Then he'll think it was _me_, though."

"And what's the problem with that?"

After a brief moment of silence, Matsuda replied, sounding slightly shamed, with, "He scares me."

Katherine laughed. "That's just a bit pitiful. You're my big brother, aren't you supposed to stick up for me?"

"Well… as long as you'll come back, I think it's only a matter of time before Ryuzaki gives up. He seems like he will soon. I think. Well, there's gotta be some way we can get him to, right?"

"You really shouldn't ingest any more caffeine, Mattie-kun. Really."

"But… but I'm really starting to like coffee…"

"All right, all right. Just limit it until you build up a higher tolerance to the stuff. No more drinking all of it to have an excuse to get out and make phone calls you shouldn't be making in the first place. You could have just waited until the coffee was gone normally. With as much as Ryuzaki drinks, it probably would have been gone by tomorrow anyway."

"Well… yeah, but this way was quicker. I have to go, I'm at the store."

"All right. Remember, limit the coffee to a bare minimum for now."

"Yeah…" he said, sighing resignedly. "Bye."

"Bye."

Katherine shut her phone, and the hand holding it fell next to her, colliding with some of the haphazard papers scattered about the bed. Soon, she would have to get up—she may not have been on the task force, but she was still part of _an_ investigation. Get up, likely spend a bit of time promising the great porcelain god of hangovers that she would never drink that much again, especially not with something as important as the Kira case to work on, and then just grin and bear it for the rest of the day. A couple aspirin would hopefully take care of the majority of the headache.

And now there was knocking on her door—that was simply _lovely_. "Gimme a few minutes!" she yelled. It was undoubtedly going to be a very long day.

* * *

When he arrived back in the hotel room, Matsuda set the bag of coffee next to the coffee maker. He started at the coffeepot for a moment, frowning contemplatively, before walking over to the sofa and sitting down; despite how much he really would have liked to have just one more cup of the stuff, he convinced himself to heed Katherine's advice and steer clear of too much of it.

"I think we would all benefit if you would stay away from the coffee for the rest of the day, Matsuda-san."

Matsuda jumped when he realized L was speaking to him. "Wh—why? I'll be okay after an hour or two." His felt his eye twitch of its own accord, thoroughly disproving this even to himself.

"Not only is your current behavior distracting," L replied, as tonelessly as usual, "but we also will have no idea if it's Kira or the coffee that killed you, should you drop dead of a heart attack."

"R… right," Matsuda agreed, nodding.

"I can't help but wonder if you didn't go out for reasons other than buying more coffee, Matsuda-san." Matsuda froze in place, thankful L's back was turned.

"W—why would you say that, Ryuzaki? I like coffee."

"It appears you didn't start… 'liking' coffee so much until around yesterday evening. We still had quite a bit left then."

"No we didn't."

"Yes we did. I keep a check on our supplies, Matsuda-san."

"Well… it… it must have been the brand," Matsuda said, nodding. "I didn't even really notice what brand it was, so I probably didn't even buy the right kind this time, which means I probably won't be drinking much more anyway. I mean, really, does everything have to be a mystery?" He laughed, a little too nervously. "I just left to buy coffee because we were almost out."

"And yet we weren't almost out a day ago."

"Yes we were—"

"Saying it repeatedly," L said, exasperated, "will not make it true."

A brief pause, and then, "Yes it will."

Perhaps it would be best not to bother interrogating Matsuda while he was still this high-strung. It was already a near impossiblity to reason with him when he was in a normal state, and the excess of caffeine running through his veins was making the task even more difficult. Right now, contradictions were all he was good for, which was the last thing L was looking for. Something was certainly a little off—something had made Matsuda drink all of the coffee, made him need the excuse to leave, and there was really only one reason that L could think of, a reason L would have preferred not thinking about at all. It led his train of thought so far off track that it was almost impossible to bring his mind back to the Kira case when he needed to.

It may have been better not to question this at all, in fact. Matsuda was already acting suspiciously, and it was a gamble whether or not Aizawa knew his coworker's plans. As sure as L was about the reasons behind Matsuda's most recent bout with utter absurdity, questioning it was only asking for trouble, asking to be bombarded with questions and demands on the subject himself. It seemed likely that Matsuda had slipped out of headquarters to make a phone call, and there was no doubting who that call had been to. Matsuda, and likely Aizawa, had noticed L's normal levels of determination had diminished slightly, and deduced what was causing it—even an idiot could have guessed it. He had only hoped they wouldn't take action this soon.

This could certainly turn into a problem. Their next course of action would likely be to discuss it with him, to talk him into letting her back on the team. It was only a matter of waiting for them to take it to that step now; in the meantime, he would go on with convincing himself that his actions had been the best course to take, for the sake of the investigation and for the sake of his and many others' identities… yet no matter how much convincing he did, L didn't feel very convinced of it. Perhaps some more time would—

"Ryuzaki?"

"Yes, Aizawa-san?"

"You seem distracted. You were questioning Amane-san before Matsuda came back."

L was silent for a moment, before going back to the microphone. His suspicions were confirmed, then—they simply weren't going to ask him about anything directly quite yet.

* * *

_Eeeeeeeee writing chapters centered around Matsu makes me ridiculously happy._

_The word of the day is boobialla! Which is the name of an Australian tree, apparently. A tree that is undoubtedly full of lulz._

_On that bombshell, I'm off. I have nerdiness that needs accomplishing. -brandishes half-finished D&D character sheet-_


	20. Truth

_HOLY FREAKIN BOB I did not expect to reach one hundred reviews last chapter 8D BUT WE DID! -spazzes-_

_austiles__: No worries about being late xD And thanks :)_

_Signora Ted__: xD Yeah, Dungeons and Dragons. My brother's starting a campaign in Tamriel, the world from the Elder Scrolls series, and I couldn't use my old character because he wouldn't have fit in story :( LOL, isn't he? xD It was one of my favorite chapters to write in the original. And thanks! Likewise, if you ever see anything particularly off about my OCs regarding their nationality, feel free to badger me until I fix it xP I'm always open to advice!_

_Long forgotten words__: xD I was unfortunately an insomniac before Death Note and fanfiction, myself… though I won't deny that both added to it. Also, I'm quite honored that your first ever review is on my own fanfiction :D_

_Stormygio__: He really does xP But hyper Matsu is just so much fun to write! Indeed they are both stubborn. LOL I will, and no worries on the updates; I'm now almost a chapter ahead. i.e. The next chapter is already nearly done. I… went a bit writing-mad yesterday morning._

_Shadow 88__: LOL he was a scardy-cat xD I do quite imagine that L knows that the cameras have been hacked into, but there's also very little stopping Pat. He's been working with computers nearly since home PCs became popular; he's a complete goof, but he knows technology… and locks. I'm lucky to have D&D connections, and it's barely any for me anyway. Me and one of my brother's friends got my brother interested in it, and we got one of my friends playing. So there're only four of us anyway. And the HP film, I mean I'm not getting to see it in theaters, period. At all. I didn't even really care about seeing it opening night, it's just the knowledge that I'm not getting to see it at all. D'x_

_The Never Ending Drums__: You'd have to be heartless not to love Matsuda x3 He's like the cuddliest character in the entire series._

_u n c a n n y obscurities__: Matsu is quite amusing xP And if this chapter seemed familiar, you probably did read the original. Almost definitely, in fact; this chapter was most definitely there._

_**Disclaimer**__: Noowns :D_

_**Warnings**__: Shorted chapter than what I've been doing ): Around my regular chapter length._

_**Quoteth**__:_

"_I just still can't get over the fact that you carry a tire iron with you __everywhere__," Katherine said, laughing. _

"_Well, they come in handy. I think the world would be a better place if everyone had them."_

"_Really? I think there'd just be quite a bit more brain damage."_

"_Well, until everyone figured out that each other had them. Then there'd be a lot less random violence. Well… 'cept for guns."_

"_Since everyone knows that old sayin', 'Don't bring a tire iron to a gunfight,' yeah?"_

"_Unless you can do __Matrix__ maneuvers and deflect the bullets with them, yeah, pretty much."  
_

* * *

Matsuda had passed out at nearly eight o'clock that night, and Aizawa had spent three more hours awake before following suit. It had truly been no surprise that Matsuda had taken an early night—as soon as the effects of the caffeine had started to wear off, around an hour before he fell asleep, he had taken to startling at the sound of his name, and generally accompanying his surprise with a sudden cry that he was, indeed, awake. It was nothing short of a relief when he had fallen asleep; hopefully he wouldn't bother with coffee again much after today.

It was just after midnight now, officially the sixth day of June, and little more progress had been made the previous day, or any day since the first of the month. Something was missing from the investigation—in a lot of ways, it was losing its novelty. It had quite abruptly become more like an actual _job_, not a game anymore. Interrogate the suspects, gain no new evidence, attempt to take mental notes on them anyway—something had been taken away from the equation. That something hadn't been there in the beginning, but it had been added in, and subtracted before there was any chance to realize just how important it had become.

Disconcerted, L stared at his open cell phone, holding it by the top of the screen, slightly away from him, before closing it for the fifth time and setting it on the table beside his computer. This was reaching the beginnings of ridiculousness. Why was he even bothering denying any of it to himself now? If what little that remained of the task force had figured it out, then there was hardly any point hiding from it anymore—yes, certainly, he missed Katherine. So why not just open the phone and call?

Dignity was why. It would be admit of defeat, that he had made a mistake. He firmly believed he hadn't made a mistake, that he had done the sensible thing in having her leave their side of the investigation. To keep her for any longer would have been to slaughter every last bit of protection that had been placed around his identity over the years, and for what? Friendship? He'd never had it in the past, and he certainly didn't need it now—did he?

L's eyes fell back to the phone again, the damnable little piece of technology sitting upon the desk. He could almost _hear_ it quietly snickering at his dilemma, at the greatest detective in the world as he deliberated more attentively over mixed feelings than he had the Kira case over the past six days—placing a single friendship over the fate of the entire world at the hands of Kira. It _wasn't_ ridiculous, it was utter madness. He picked up the phone again, quite intent on pocketing it this time, but once again flipped it open and frowned over it.

Back to square one, where, phone in hand, L wondered if it would _really_ hurt to make the call. It had been going on for the past hour; since L had ascertained that both Matsuda and Aizawa were indeed asleep, his thoughts had been leading him in complete circles, revolving around that cell phone as though it held some gravitational pull on the very fabric of his being.

He sighed at the device, closed it, and set it down once again. At this rate, that call was going to go through before the sun rose.

* * *

"Stupid—bloody—"

Katherine rolled over and attempted to punch down the snooze button on her alarm clock without opening her eyes. It was taking quite a few tries, and after some time, she opened her eyes… and realized there was no alarm clock on her nightstand, nor had there been for a few months at least. The ringing, in fact, wasn't even similar to an alarm clock, electric or otherwise. Letting her eyes come into focus, she realized she had been senselessly beating her own cell phone, and quickly grabbed it up to check the front screen. She frowned at the number, and after a quick self-debate, flipped it open.

"It's almost two in the morning, this'd better be important."

"This is—"

"You." She immediately sat up in bed. "This really _had_ better be good. I think I'm likely to show you less mercy than I would an early morning telemarketer."

"The task force requires your assistance again."

"That's nice. Anything else?"

For a moment, all that responded to her question was complete silence. "Are you willing to come back and work with us?"

"Depends. Are you going to get the information I have and kick me out again?"

"Whether you have information or not is not the issue at hand." Katherine scoffed. "You can choose to believe that it is if you so wish, but the reasoning is something else entirely."

"Fine. If I agree to come back, I'll expect a full explanation."

"That… will be fine. You will be expected between noon and one. We're still in the same room."

"I'll show up when I show up. Goodbye."

Without waiting for a reply, she snapped her phone shut, sighing. She had left at maybe noon on the first, and now it was almost two hours past midnight on the sixth—it had taken him four and a half days to even call, and not even with an apology… yet she had agreed to go back, would probably even show up between noon and one tomorrow, as requested—no, _expected_ of her. It was like asking to be the task force's punching bag, _asking_ them to beat on her and push her around, make her do their bidding. Why had she agreed to his terms so easily?

Frowning at her phone as she lay back down on her bed, she knew exactly why—it was because she missed the scruffy insomniac quite a lot more than she liked to admit, even to herself. The past four and a half days had been dedicated to convincing herself that she didn't miss him, forcing the anger to cover up those feelings, when she really probably missed him more than the rest of the team. That voice in her mind trying to insist that she did miss him, that little voice she had attempted to drink away the night before this, had been frustratingly correct.

Still, if he didn't offer her a full explanation when she returned, it was a gamble whether or not she could convince herself to actually like him again. She would accept waiting until after dark to hear it, after the others had gone to sleep, if it was necessary, but she'd get it. No _if'_s, no _and'_s, no _but'_s, no excuses or arguments; she was going to get her explanation if she had to force it out of him.

Within minutes, she was out of her room and sifting through her messenger bag in the living room, feeling far too awake to get back to sleep, far too _giddy_. Most of her belongings, changes of clothes and et cetera, were still with the task force—which, she supposed, should have been enough of a sign that she wasn't on any sort of a permanent leave. There really wasn't anything else she needed that she didn't already have or that they didn't already have at this point. Dropping her messenger bag onto the floor beside her, she stretched out across the comfortable sofa to stare up at the ceiling.

She was going back, and she was _happy_.

"What're you doin' up?"

Katherine closed her eyes—except for that. "Got woken up and couldn't get back to sleep." She opened her eyes to look at Pat. "What's your excuse, then?"

"Monitoring Misa and the Yagamis. Decided to take the night shift." He hovered in the doorway, eyes darting back and forth between the monitors and the living room. "Don's hardly been sleeping."

"Someone should tell him he'll end up looking like L if he keeps it up. Speaking of which…" Her eyes fell back upon the ceiling. She might as well get this over with as soon as possible. "I'm going back."

"To the task force?" She nodded. "Sor' of figured that wouldn't last long."

"Yeah, guess I did too, really. Got the call 'round fifteen minutes ago telling me to be back at the room between noon and one tomorrow… well, today, actually. It is after midnight." Sighing, she said, "Wish I'd been a little less irritable while I was here. Little time as I get off I should've tried being a bit more sociable. I am really sorry about how I've been the past few days."

Pat shrugged. "Don't worry about it. No one's all… sunshine and daisies after getting fired, 'specially not if it's a job they like. That's why I like my job. There's no shortage of work and it's impossible to get fired if you don't have a boss."

"I'm not sure if I'd consider thievery a _job_," Katherine said, grinning. "I suppose maybe on the scale you do it on, it might be. And I wouldn't consider working with the task force a job either. Not like I'm getting paid. I got fired from _volunteer work_, for Christ's sake! Really, how much _talent_ must it take for someone to decide they don't want your help for _free_?"

"That does seem a tad strange. Though it'd be easier to be fired from than thievery."

"Well, the police can fire you. In fact, they can fire _on_ you with whatever the standard issue gun is here in Japan."

"Well… yeah, but that's… that's different. That's more like a work-related accident." Katherine rolled her eyes.

"It's not a work-related accident if you can't get worker's compensation from it. Maybe you should get back into that whole 'night shift bank vault janitor' business, I'm sure you could get worker's comp from that."

"I'm not—"

"No, you're never living that one down."

"It's still not as bad as having to bail _him_," he nodded down the hall towards Don's door, "out of the county jail in a bloody pink cocktail dress. On more than one occasion!"

"Granted tequila has been involved in all those situations. _You_ were perfectly sober, mate."

"Ah, so I'm no good at lying, gimme a break! Weren't for me, we wouldn't have ever gotten all the files on the Kira case or been able to keep track of L. Sure, I nearly gave him brain damage in the process, but I _didn't_, and that's what counts."

"I just still can't get over the fact that you carry a tire iron with you _everywhere_," Katherine said, laughing.

"Well, they come in handy. I think the world would be a better place if everyone had them."

"Really? I think there'd just be quite a bit more brain damage."

"Well, until everyone figured out that each other had them. Then there'd be a lot _less_ random violence. Well… 'cept for guns."

"Since everyone knows that old sayin', 'Don't bring a tire iron to a gunfight,' yeah?"

"Unless you can do _Matrix_ maneuvers and deflect the bullets with them, yeah, pretty much."

Katherine laughed. "I'm almost glad you and the task force have been separated so far. Aizawa seems to think _I'm_ the most absurd person he's ever met. You'd probably make his afro explode or somethin'. Though you might be able to give each other tips on ridiculous-hair care."

"_My_ hair is amazing, not _ridiculous_, thanks."

"Except how, y'know, it hasn't been in style since roughly nineteen eighty-nine, and you didn't even start it until you were a teenager in the late nineties."

"Still better than an afro…"

"Whatever makes you feel better, mate," Katherine replied airily. "I can keep an eye on the monitors if you need any sleep—"

"I'm fine," he said immediately, and his eyes darted straight back to the monitors—Katherine sighed. Of course, he didn't want to let poor, poor, confused, _lost_ Misa out of his sight. It really made her feel quite bad for him—even with her death note gone, Misa still remembered Light as her boyfriend, still believed herself to be completely in love with him, though it would undoubtedly be quite a bit more one-sided once Light wasn't Kira anymore. Pat had cared about the boisterous blond since meeting her months ago in Blue Note, back when she had just started trying to break into the modeling business, before she had ever been the second Kira. Perhaps it wasn't quite as bad as his last "serious" relationship—the mere thought of _that_, and its aftermath, was enough to make Katherine flinch.

"Well, I'll be awake all night, more than likely," Katherine said finally. "So if you have to leave the room for anything I can fill in."

* * *

"It's noon now. Aizawa-san—"

"That's Matsuda's job…" Aizawa complained.

"Sending Matsuda-san could result in her being tackled, and the resulting scene would likely cause them both to be thrown out of the hotel," L replied stoically.

"Hey!"

"Please wait for Katherine-san downstairs, Aizawa-san," L finished, ignoring Matsuda's outburst.

"Yeah, yeah…" Aizawa said, standing from his chair and walking past a thoroughly affronted Matsuda to the door. "I'm going…"

He took an elevator straight to the lobby and stood off to the side from the entrance a bit; she obviously wasn't here yet. Noon had just arrived, and from what L had said, it was likely Aizawa would be waiting down here an hour for someone who wasn't even going to show up on time, yet the insomniac insisted that _someone_ had to remain downstairs from noon until one, just in case she did decide to be cooperative for once. That seemed highly unlikely, based on past experience. The girl was so absolutely bent on resisting authority and arguing everything—

His thoughts were cut off abruptly by an overexcited _whoop!_ accompanied by a tackle-hug from behind. He cringed a little before turning around and frowning at his tackler. So much for sending him downstairs to avoid a scene—now half the people in the lobby were looking in their direction.

"What's that look for? You know you missed me, Aihara-san."

Aizawa sighed. "Yeah, sure. Let's just get back upstairs."

"You're absolutely no fun at all, you know that?"

A bit huffily, Katherine followed Aizawa to the elevators, remained silent the whole time she was on them, and followed him to the door of the hotel suite. Aizawa swiped his keycard, and was shoved immediately out of the way as she hurried through the door—a yell of "_Onii-chaaaaan!_" sounded from within the room, followed by Matsuda's own startled yelp as she undoubtedly tackled him as well. Shaking his head, Aizawa entered and closed the door behind him. It _had_ been a little duller without her around, he supposed; L didn't do much arguing, and Matsuda cowered in fear rather than stand up for himself.

L was unsurprised that he was ignored in her enthusiastic greeting (she tackled Aizawa as though she had just seen him when he was shutting the door after entering the room, undoubtedly just to annoy the target)—he would undoubtedly be getting quite a different greeting later, when she decided she wanted to know exactly why she had been kicked off of the investigation team for any amount of time. It would be difficult, but he was prepared to explain… and apologize. Just thinking of the latter almost made him flinch; he had been in the wrong for letting her go without a proper explanation in the first place, and that was undeniable. If he was wrong, he was going to have to apologize. The thought of speaking to her privately still scared him, but he would just have to be careful.

* * *

The atmosphere of headquarters had returned almost to normalcy by the end of the day—Aizawa and Katherine had argued quite animatedly on more than one occasion, Matsuda had tried to play peacekeeper and failed, and Katherine and Matsuda had gotten into more than one conversation on topics entirely irrelevant to the Kira case. The only difference was Katherine was entirely ignoring L, electing instead to speak to the other two whenever L spoke.

When midnight rolled around, it almost surprised L to see Katherine sitting on the coffee table next to him, arms crossed and eyebrows raised, facing him—he had half-expected her to spend at least the next few days ignoring him, perhaps even a week, but she certainly looked like she was expecting something out of him right this moment. She had caught him off guard, as she seemed to so greatly enjoy doing, and now he wasn't prepared, wasn't sure of where to even begin.

"Well?" she said. "I waited until Mattie and Aizawa went to sleep so you wouldn't have to worry about them overhearing anything you might not want them to. I've been considerate of you, now it's your turn."

"I'm…" Perhaps it would be better, if only easy, to start just off of the immediate subject at hand, on something related, something that was important in and of itself anyway; and steer the subject in the right direction. "I'm curious to know the significant information you discovered shortly before—"

"Before you kicked me out of the investigation team, right? Why should I tell you?"

"You're on our side. If you have information, it would be logical to release it. I imagined you would as soon as you returned. If it will help the investigation team, then—"

"Those two wouldn't understand it, and I'm not telling you because I currently don't like you very much."

L blinked. "Why do you think you were let go?"

"You—" Katherine made a frustrated noise. "You're _unbelievable_. I wasn't need anymore, was I? Al was gone, and I was a messenger from a side that didn't have any more information you had any use for. I guess that's about the gist of it, isn't it? You probably even think I'm bluffing about having any information right now, but I know it's driving you crazy not knowing whether I am or not. For all I know, you'll let me go _again_ as soon as I tell you what I know, so why would I? You claimed you didn't trust me when you kicked me out, so why should I trust you now?"

She was angry, and because of this certainly hadn't come even close to realizing the truth of why she had been pushed away. If he was going to have to explain positively everything, then it would probably be best to come right out; starting on any different subject, trying to steer the subject around wasn't going to be of any help to either of them. It was nerveracking to do so, but she would only remain against him if the truth didn't come out right now.

"It _was_ a matter of trust, and I find it regrettable now that I didn't wait to discuss it with you. I'm… sorry."

* * *

_The word of the day… is cliffhanger._

_MUAHAHAHAHAHA_

_On that bombshell, I will now be working on the next chapter._


	21. Torture

_OMG so many reviews last chapter! Total of ten, I think? :D I know I'm a little late in the day updating, but my evil evil guitars kept distracting me in the middle of the night._

_Given there are so many reviews, I'm going to do my best to keep replies short so I don't spam you all out with A/N madness._

_fezzesandbowtiesarecool__: Yep, reasonable—just stubborn. But now that she's back, she's pretty intent on hearing his side, so she'll definitely be listening._

_santaclauseisastalker__: And now you don't have to! :D Though I do apologize for the terrible terrible cliffhanger last chapter xD_

_austiles__: x3 I'm glad you approve. There's not a __whole__ lot to go by with Aizawa, so I'm glad I've done all right with him._

_Stormygio__: Agreed on the tire irons… no one ever said Pat had an overabundance of logic in these areas. LOL everyone hates me for the cliffhanger xD I feel worse for Aizawa, honestly—Matsu strikes me as the type that really doesn't mind being tackle-glomped, more than most other characters in the series. Thank you, and I will attempt to keep the fic up to everyone's standards :D_

_Signora Ted__: Aaawwww, what's wrong with my word of the day? xP I found it quite awesome._

_VoidOfDoomAndCupcakes__: Yep, rather a lot of updates xD_

_Shadow-Chan 4__: My words-of-the-day are sad that you dislike them. Though I imagine the last one had the most influence? :P_

_long forgotten words__: LOL I know, I'm evil. But at least I didn't take a ridiculously long time uploading the next chapter, right? Tis up to you whether you reread the original… though compared to the rewrite, the writing quality is positively terrible. I can't even bring myself to read beyond the prologue… And don't worry about "spamming" reviews; I'd __have__ to be an evil writer to complain about getting reviews xD_

_xxyangxx2006__: No worries about being late, I know how real-life can catch up with a person. I'm just very glad you've enjoyed the updates so far!_

_Shadowess88__: Well, it's sort of a double-edged sword with these two—L has trouble distrusting her, and she has trouble distrusting him (at the very least, she does when she's not royally peeved at him). But, he didn't exactly state what he was sorry for, which could lead to general confusion. xD LARPing! We still haven't managed to talk my brother and my friend into it yet; his friend and I are all for it, so we've been poking and prodding them about it. I think larping seems like it would be fun—we love table-top, so why not live-action? They've gotta learn to embrace the nerddom!_

_**Disclaimer**__: I no owns ): I would be rich if I did… though knowing me, that wouldn't affect my frequents to fanficdotnet._

_**Warnings**__: Hmmmm… L torment, discussions of Light's, er, "preferences," and the rather scary thought of Matsu and Kat forming a band after the Kira investigation. Can't forget that._

_**Quoteyquoterson**__:_

"_How long is this conversation going to continue?" L interrupted._

"_Until I find a more amusing topic." She received a sigh in response. "Cheer up or I'll tell Light you want to chain yourself to him."_

"_I don't want to—"_

"_First voyeurism, now bondage? No wonder you've been separated from other people for so long with __those__ sorts of interests."_

_Perhaps it would be better to just ignore this. As he took a sip of his coffee, L once again found himself wondering exactly __why__ he had missed this torture._

* * *

L's eyes remained glued to his computer after he said it, that _word_, waiting. He felt almost foolish—children apologized for breaking windows while playing baseball, teenagers apologized for mouthing off to their parents. For something like this, a simple _sorry_ didn't cover nearly all the bases that needed covering, left so much open.

"So… you really didn't trust me, did you?" He heard her laugh quietly. "I think I would have preferred just being a useless messenger."

"It was a matter of trust, yes; and no, you weren't useless. You're intelligent and you're good at finding things out. Perhaps too good."

Katherine frowned, still staring at her knees. "Well, isn't that sort of a required trait in a case this important? I mean, that shouldn't be a problem—" She looked up at L, and noticed something else behind that stoic, expressionless stare. He was facing towards the computer, but his eyes were just a little off of it, looking down. She was too good at finding things out…? After a moment of contemplation, it hit her with force enough to make her flinch; she declined her head again. "Oh… that."

"It's not conceivable for anyone besides myself or Watari to know about my past," L said, confirming her inference. "I doubt you'll tell anyone, but it still seemed the safest thing to do… to ensure that I didn't slip up again. I thought it would be safer for both of us."

The room was silent for a long moment, save for the monitors—Misa had awoken fifteen minutes ago and was making quite a racket on hers, though the speakers were turned down low enough that it was hardly bothersome. L kept his line of sight trained on the screen for the moment; Light and his father were both asleep in their cells at the current time, the Shinigami in Light's twisted into some strange knot that made it nearly unrecognizable from what it had been a mere week ago; apparently a distinct lack of apples was doing this to him. After a moment, Katherine sighed, pulling him back to their conversation, a conversation that he sincerely hoped would be over soon.

"Then the problem," she said, "is that you think you might trust me… _too_ much."

That was certainly a way of putting it—it made quite a bit of sense, honestly. Lately, he had been having quite a bit of trouble discrediting anything she told him, even more trouble putting her under the same scrutiny that he had Light under for so long. She was a _less_ likely suspect, but all the same, she _should_ have still been a suspect. Her actions involving that notebook could have been a ruse (though the notebook itself was undoubtedly genuine, he thought as he stared at the tangled Shinigami on the screen before him)—what was there saying she had _really_ saved him from death at all, thrown away a year of her life so easily? He should have been questioning it, questioning her every chance he received, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to do so.

"I should be apologizing." He glanced over at Katherine, who still didn't lift her head. "I shouldn't have asked. Yes, I _was_ only joking, but I didn't consider what I was asking before I… I'm sorry. I suppose you were fairly well justified in kicking me out. Which brings me to ask," she continued, looking up at him now, "why did you ask me to come back? _Is_ it because of the information I had? Because you haven't exactly made any sort of real attempt to find out what it was while I was gone." L was silent for a moment, and Katherine went on, now beginning to sound a bit amused. "Matsuda implied that you missed me."

"I… did."

Sighing, she said, "I suppose I missed you, too…." She smiled. "Pissed off as I was all week, I really didn't acknowledge it until… well, last night, I suppose. But I did."

Crossing her arms, she remained silent for a long moment, looking off to the side a bit. Once again, L turned his head to face the monitors, and his eye fell on the grotesque entanglement that was that strange Shinigami once again, now mumbling about apples and sitting—as well as it _could_ sit in its current state—on the floor of the cell beside Light's bed. He nearly jumped when he heard a sympathetic _tsk_ing sound a bit closer to him; Katherine had stood and was examining the monitors from over his shoulder.

"Poor Ryuk. I mean, sure, he started the whole mess, but you should have seen the look on his face when he figured out there weren't going to be any apples for him in confinement."

"Ryuk…"

"The Shinigami," Katherine said, nodding. "I got a bit of the plan out of Light just before he went into confinement. He basically said it didn't matter whether I knew or not, and I guess it really doesn't, since there isn't much that can be done." She paused for a moment, watching the screen before continuing. "He's… going to be giving up his death note. I was pretty surprised when I saw Ryuk still with him today, honestly. I figured it'd be done by now. He's giving up _his_ death note, and Rem is delivering Misa's to someone else, who will act as Kira."

"If the killings start again while Light is in confinement, he'll be proven innocent," L said, now looking at Light. "I wondered if it wasn't something like that, but I didn't believe he would trust someone to act in Kira's stead."

"I wouldn't have either, but I imagine there's more to it than that," she said, leaning against the back of the chair L was seated in. "I've had a lot of time to think about it over the past week, and I don't doubt for a moment that he fully intends for both himself and Misa to get their death notes back. He sent Rem because all Ryuk really cares about is apples and good times. Rem cares about Misa, and will do whatever necessary to ensure her safety. Light probably instructed her to go to someone less intelligent than himself, whose actions would be easier to track."

"Someone we could catch," L said. "If we confiscated the death note, Rem would be attached to it, then, and wouldn't give us any information. Whereas if Ryuk was bound to the first death note we found…"

"It would just be a matter of 'We'll give you _X_ amount of apples if you tell us this information.' And it's equally likely that Ryuk would be more than happy to either tell for the sake of Light's reaction, or screw with our heads for the sake of all of our reactions. Something like accusing someone else on the team of being Kira, you know?"

"Then the reason he dropped a death note in the first place," L said, "was for entertainment purposes."

"Seems so." She tilted her head. "Yet somehow I can't bring myself to dislike him. He kind of reminds me of a puppy in a weird way." L looked up at her, somewhat incredulously. "Well, an addict-puppy that has the weirdest symptoms of withdrawal I've ever seen, at the very least." She noticed the look she was receiving. "What? You remind me of a puppy too, don't worry." And with that, she patted him on the head a few times.

"That—wasn't—" She lay her forehead on the back of the chair, now laughing. "… I see."

"Don't _say_ that," she said, almost irately.

"'I see…?'"

"Yes, _that_, it effectively ends any conversation it's inserted into. You may as well be telling the other person to piss off." She yawned, picking her head back up. "I don't like it, at least. And I need to get a bit of sleep. Wouldn't want to distract you from the little _voyeurism_ thing you've got going over here, would I, Stalker-san?" L heard her laugh as he glared at the computer screen, and jumped slightly in surprise when her arms looped around his neck—he heard yet another laugh at this. "Sorry, I had to. Blame Misa. Anyway." She let him go, but before straightening out, pressed her lips to his cheek. "Good night."

He didn't respond, simply stared blinkingly at the computer screen in front of him—was there, perhaps, a bit of color in those pale cheeks, or was she only imagining it? Grinning a little, she walked back to the sofa, miraculously empty at night for the first time in ages, and lay down upon it, stared at the ceiling for a little while before closing her eyes.

L, on the other hand, silently cursed himself. For _what_ reason had he missed this befuddlement, this confusing form of utter _torture_, while she had been gone? If there was any acceptable way to react to this sort of thing, he was at a lack of knowledge on the topic. Come to think, he was truly at a lack of knowledge on the behavior of friends in general. Was this simply friendly behavior, or wasn't it? The only time he had ever seen her around one of her friends outside the investigation had been on the To-Oh campus, before he even really knew their intent on the Kira case, and while that had been very brief, it had still seemed… no, it was too brief a period to judge on. Yet she even seemed slightly different around Matsuda, who she went so far as to refer to as _Onii-chan_ or _Mattie-kun_ on a regular basis.

Of course, there was every chance she was doing this for her own entertainment—the one thing everyone _did_ know about L was his reclusive lifestyle, that he had little face-to-face interaction with other people, on a professional level or otherwise. She was using the "otherwise", then, to throw him off, to confuse him, for her own amusement. He came to focus on the monitors, on the Shinigami in Light's cell. No wonder she couldn't bring herself to dislike Ryuk; they _both_ enjoyed victimizing others for their own entertainment.

He had no way of deciding which theory might be more accurate without any basis for comparison of her behavior around other friends, or no basis for comparison on the subject of friends in general—he had to admit, he understood very little on the subject. It could be better not to dwell on it; figuring out the mystery of human interaction was something psychologists had been trying to do for years, and many still had different opinions on the subject. The Kira case almost seemed _simple_ in contrast to figuring out Katherine's intent.

* * *

Waking up the next morning took very little effort, if only because Katherine woke up the moment she rolled off of the couch. She groaned quietly to herself as she sat up and tried to stand—she sat heavily back on the sofa, having not expected her feet to be quite so sore. It took only a glance at her feet to realize the issue; she had neglected taking off her boots the previous night, and there was really no point bothering now. Bracing herself, she stood again, glanced around the room to see everyone still sleeping soundly, and walked carefully over to the coffee maker.

A minute later, she was setting her own cup down on the coffee table, one in front of L; and she prodded the dozing detective with the toe of her boot before sitting down beside her coffee—L sprung awake immediately, and his eyes focused upon a cup in front of the laptop that _surely_ hadn't been there a moment ago. Cautiously, he picked it up and peered into it—coffee? A voice sounded next to him as he examined the dark contents of the cup.

"You'll have to sweeten it yourself, I didn't feel like counting out fifty sugar cubes. And don't worry, I won't tell anyone you were sleeping on the job." He blinked down at the cup for a moment longer, before comprehending the voice—that explained the coffee that had seemingly appeared from nothingness. He set it back down on the table. "It's not poisoned, you know."

He stared at the coffee again for a moment, trying to remember where the sugar was, before he realized it was in a bowl off to the side of the laptop, mere inches away from his coffee. After rubbing his eyes, he took a moment to stare between the two. This was precisely why he didn't sleep during investigations, unless by complete accident. It was thoroughly perturbing that there was someone that woke up earlier than himself on the rare occasion that he did sleep now; the rest of the task force was supposed to depend on him, and what was there to be depended on in a detective that was on the verge of taking five minutes to understand the fundamentals of morning coffee?

"You're a bit slow on the uptake after you sleep, aren't you?" Katherine asked from next to him, as he reached for the bowl of sugar cubes.

"You sound amused," he observed.

"That would be because I sort of am," she confirmed. "I've had trouble sleeping before, but I normally crash after a few days—I think this is the first time I've ever even seen you _nearly_ asleep. You're practically a living definition for 'insomnia'."

"I suppose."

It seemed she decided at this point to leave him alone until his coffee was finished, which had its downsides and its upsides. He was indeed quite a bit more awake by the time the cup was empty (and he immediately went for another), though the alertness also triggered memories of the previous night, something he had told himself he would put off of his mind today—it didn't particularly help that it had been the last thing on his mind before he started dozing off.

When he returned to his seat, Katherine was watching the monitors with her head tilted slightly—following her line of sight, it seemed she was watching Ryuk and Light. Light was awake, and Ryuk had taken no time at all in realizing this. As usual, Light sat against his bed, eyes narrowed, determined, behind a mess of hair, completely ignoring his cellmate. The Shinigami, one arm stretching beneath the other all the way around to his back, legs a tangled mess, was now hanging upside down, practically groaning at Light about apples.

"I'm glad humans don't go through withdrawal like that," Katherine said. "It looks painful."

"Light planned to have Rem leave Misa's death note in the hands of a new Kira." Katherine looked over at L now. "Yet the murders have stopped. Is there any chance that Rem could have gone against Light's instructions?"

"I doubt it," Katherine said, shaking her head. "Seems like it's maybe just a drawback of his plan. He probably gave Rem instructions for how to pick the next Kira and Rem just hasn't found anyone fitting yet. Of course, it will also show when the murders do start again that there's no change in behavior on _his_ part between when they aren't happening and when they are." She sighed. "I'm just wondering precisely how he intends to get his death note back. Unless the new Kira forfeits it or dies while Light is holding the death note, it won't be his."

"It's possible," L said, "that he may have a small piece of paper from that death note on hand in this event. He will lose all memory of the death notes when he forfeits his?" Katherine nodded. "Then it would have to be somewhere that he wouldn't know of unless he came into contact with a death note again, but still definitely in his possession when he does."

"His wallet would be a little too obvious," Katherine said, watching L chew his thumbnail, "and he would run the risk of coming into contact with the piece of death note too early. I don't think he _wants_ to be Kira during this part of the investigation, or have Kira's memories. He wants to be as unsuspicious as possible, and the best way to not be suspicious is to have nothing to be suspicious about…"

"Once he is cleared of suspicion and on the investigation team, it doesn't seem there's any stopping his plan from running its course…"

"Well… you don't _have_ to let him on the investigation team… right?" Katherine said uncertainly.

"I doubt Yagami-san will take no for an answer once Light is cleared of suspicion."

"Ah…" Katherine's eyes fell to the older man in his cell, looking far more miserable than Light or Misa, perhaps on near equal footing with Ryuk. "Of course, he'll expect you to still suspect Light, so you'd still be keeping him under your watch at all times, which guarantees him a spot on the task force anyway. But how are you supposed to keep him under your watch twenty-four seven? Short of handcuffing yourself to him, it's just not possible."

"Hmm."

Katherine raised an eyebrow. "You're not actually considering it?"

"It's the only logical way to ensure Light isn't allowed out of my sight," L replied. "As you said, there is no other possible way."

"I suppose…" Katherine said, frowning. "The team probably wouldn't be very surprised. It seems like something you'd do to prove your suspicions right. And not to mention," she said, slowly, "I'm not sure Light would mind. He might _act_ like he does, but… well, let's just say I'm not too sure about his _preferences_ in the dating department." She tried not to laugh at the glare she received. "I'm serious, I don't think I've ever met a more high maintenance male in my life! Not to mention, it seems the only times he's dated have been in tandem with the Kira case, avoiding suspicion and making himself look 'normal' and all that. He's practically got girls throwing themselves at him and he doesn't _care_. So, you know, be careful if you _do_ chain yourself to him."

"Why?"

"Because he might be g—"

"That is to say," L cut her off, "_why_ are you taking this entirely out of context?"

"Because it's fun. I can ask him if you'd prefer not to."

"Ask him…?"

"If he's g—"

"No."

"You're absolutely no fun," she said airily. "I just know if _I_ was going to be chained to someone, especially of the same gender, _especially_ if I was male, whether or not to expect surprise bu—"

"How long is this conversation going to continue?" L interrupted.

"Until I find a more amusing topic." She received a sigh in response. "Cheer up or I'll tell Light you want to chain yourself to him."

"I don't want to—"

"First voyeurism, now bondage? No wonder you've been separated from other people for so long with _those_ sorts of interests."

Perhaps it would be better to just ignore her for now, until the topic switched to something more relevant. As he took a sip of his second cup of coffee, L once again found himself wondering exactly _why_ he had missed this torture.

* * *

"Stop that."

"What?"

"That _whistling_, it's distracting."

"So's your afro, but you don't hear me complaining."

The morning had passed by in quite a rush, and it was already after twelve o'clock now—and things were, indeed, back to normal. Despite the complaints, Katherine went on whistling some irritatingly recognizable tune, flipping through paperwork that she wasn't paying very close attention to, and Aizawa sighed and continued trying to focus on his. Katherine was on speaking terms with L once again, and she and Matsuda had gotten into a discussion shortly after waking up about what they were going to call the band they were forming after the Kira investigation was over—they were still calling out suggestions every few minutes.

_Normal_. If normalcy continued at this pace, Aizawa might be tempted to invest in a pair of earplugs the next time he was out.

"Light-kun." The other three looked up from their work when L spoke into one of the microphones. "It has only been a week and you're already looking drained. Are you all right?"

He glanced up at the camera on him. "Yes… but even I can't think I'm in good shape right now. This pride… I'll have to forfeit it."

"_Eh?_" Katherine's eyes moved to Ryuk, who had managed to force himself into an upright position, though he stood on only one foot. "_Okay. Later._" And with that, the tangled mess of a Shinigami somehow managed to maneuver himself through the wall of the cell. As soon as Ryuk was gone from the view of the camera, Light's eyes widened in some sudden realization, as the memories of his death note, of his time as Kira, left him.

Step one of his plan was complete.

* * *

_And that, so they say, is the way the cookie crumbles._

_Or maybe I just want cookies. Yes, I want cookies. -sadface-_

_Dunno if there'll be a chapter tomorrow. I really depends on how I'm feeling after helping make more D&D character sheets tonight, I suppose. I'm really hoping to have one up tomorrow, but if I don't, rest assured that there WILL be one by the next day._

_The word of the day is whillikers!_

_And on that bombshell, I'm off, as guitar is calling again._


	22. Game

_Oh maaaaan this chapter, this chapter. I was really apprehensive about it (the later scene, I mean) when I was reading over it in the original TKN, but I just had to include it. I do hope I made it a tad more realistic here than it was there._

_On the upside, chapter today! Didn't end up D&Ding at all last night, or working on character sheets because of my brother's new job; we'll probably work on charasheets on his days off this weekend, at least._

_Anyway, onto reviews!_

_austiles__: LOL, believe me, there'll be plenty of relentless Light-teasing in future chapters xD Katherine isn't fond of him and doesn't have any trouble saying any of it straight-out to him either._

_Long forgotten words__: xD Thanks for the virtual cookies! And look, now you don't have to LARP! xP I personally think larping seems fun, but I'm a bit of a supernerd, so…_

_Stormygio__: D'awww, I like Aizawa's fro xD I was so sad when he got his haircut in the Near-Mello-arc. I was all "OHNOESAFROCOP! D':"_

_u n c a n n y obscurities__: I'm glad you approve of my changes to her :D I can't believe how non-believable a character she really used to be. I shudder to think what a terrible characterizer I once was…_

_Shadowess 88__: Haha, don't worry, she'll be pointing it out to __someone__ in a chapter soon enough. And on a random note, I actually have a replica of the sword of Gryffindor. And of Voldy's wand. And the timeturner. -diehardfangirl- Pitiful, aren't I?_

_**Disclaimer**__: Nooooowwwwwwnnnsssss_

_**Warnings**__: Er… hopefully this chapter won't have more suckage power than a Dyson vacuum?_

_**Quoteeeeeyyy**__:_

_One of her eyebrows raised, but she left her eyes closed for the moment. "You're not supposed to agree with me, afro-cop. I'm the bane of your existence, remember?"_

"_I can't help it if you actually manage to make a little sense every once in a great while."_

* * *

The sudden, extraordinary change in behavior on the part of Light Yagami would have left the whole investigation team scratching their heads—indeed, Matsuda and Aizawa had looked on, utterly speechless, as Light yelled up at the camera that there was positively _no_ chance he was Kira, he had made a mistake, he needed to be let out _now_ so he could help bring Kira down himself. Of course, the answer had been no; Light had asked to be confined, told L not to let him out until there wasn't a shadow of a doubt he was innocent, and right now there had still been no murders since his confinement, placing the newly amnesiac Light in quite a bit of a bind.

"It's just like what happened with Misa…" Matsuda said, at half past six o'clock that night, shaking his head. He was already stretched out across a recliner, and would undoubtedly fall asleep there in four to five hours, though he was reviewing paperwork for the moment—specifically, a transcript of the interrogations with Misa, at the point where she had changed. "Could it _really_ just be an act?"

"It _is_ weird…. Their behaviors took a one-eighty in a split second," Aizawa agreed, leaning forward in his own chair. "I know Amane's an idol, but she's just in modeling, right?"

"She was trying to break into acting, too, last I knew," Katherine said. Her eyes were closed to the ceiling as she lay on the sofa. "She's not bad, either, but I don't know anyone that's _that_ good."

"Maybe stir-crazy?" Matsuda suggested, looking between the other two—L had decided against participating in the debate, as he was currently busy with the monitors and a large bowl of strawberry ice cream. "Misa changed after four days, Light after seven. I don't think _I'd_ last more than a week, personally."

"And Misa can't _see_ anything, to top it off, so her sanity would have ran out a bit quicker than Light's, I'd think," Katherine agreed. "But the magnitude of their changes, and in a split second…" she shook her head. "Doesn't going crazy take a little _time_? They didn't show any signs beforehand. They just snapped. There's always at least _little_ signs before the inevitable. It's almost like they lost something."

"If they are Kira and the second Kira—" The other three looked at L when he spoke. "—then temporary amnesia is possible."

"Amnesia…?" Matsuda frowned. "But neither of them have suffered any head injuries recently, have they?"

"Amnesia can occur in response to traumatic situations. It's possible their confinement could have triggered it—memories of their guilt would have left their minds, as both a defense mechanism and subconscious reaction to the trauma of being confined for their crimes. This is assuming they're guilty, of course. Misa doesn't even remember why she was confined; Light remembers why, but suddenly is quite positive that there is no chance of his being Kira."

Well, they _had_ lost their memories, that was certain, Katherine thought with a frown. From a psychological standpoint, it could perhaps be considered a form of temporary amnesia, though it admittedly went just a little deeper; the average psychologist would likely scoff at the idea of Shinigami, and attribute it as a mental illness. Take two of these pills a day, Kira, and that apple craving phantom of yours should be gone inside of a month, or else it'll be electroshock treatment for you. If only their problems _were_ as simple as an everyday, run-of-the-mill delusional psychopath killing in the name of justice. Katherine sighed inwardly. _If only._

"How much time generally passes before the onset of this kind of amnesia?" Katherine asked.

"It varies between the person and the situation. Perhaps this is the case with Amane, but Light-kun seems only to be suffering from an epiphany. It's hard to say if he has actually forgotten anything."

"Whereas Amane was holding information from us," Aizawa said, "and suddenly forgot that she was."

"And now she won't shut up about Light being her boyfriend or wanting to meet Kira," Katherine said with a sigh.

"She's incriminating herself so much that it's hard to believe she could possibly be the second Kira," Matsuda said, setting the papers down he had been reading through. "And I guess she would act like this if she didn't remember being the second Kira…"

"And Light would likely act like he currently is if he didn't remember acting as Kira," Katherine said.

"This is all still assuming they were guilty in the first place," Aizawa reminded them. "It's only been a week so far. Kira never has stopped killing for an entire week before, but there's still no saying this is a definite. It's only a possible theory."

"It will be best," L cut in, "to leave them in confinement for a while longer. If the killings don't begin again, it will be a definite possibility that they are guilty, but don't realize they are themselves due to trauma-induced amnesia."

"And if the killings do start again, they'll be cleared of suspicion?"

"Not necessarily." Aizawa sighed in annoyance, sitting back in his chair. "If two people can have Kira's powers, then it's plausible that three could."

"A scary thought if I ever heard one…" Katherine said, grimacing.

"No kidding."

One of her eyebrows rose, but she left her eyes closed for the moment. "You're not supposed to agree with me, afro-cop. I'm the bane of your existence, remember?"

"I can't help it if you actually manage to make a little sense every once in a great while. I don't think anyone wants to deal with another Kira."

"Except his supporters," Matsuda pointed out glumly.

The glumness of the rest of the day came with at least one benefit—the concept of memory loss had been placed in Matsuda and Aizawa's minds, and they didn't seem to object to this more mundane theory of trauma-induced amnesia; and in accepting this, they also certainly seemed to accept the possibility that Light and Misa could be guilty of the crimes of Kira and the second Kira, as well as that they might _still_ be guilty even if the murders started again. It would be harder to make Yagami except the possibility because he hadn't been here to see his son's sudden change in attitude on the cameras; and also because, simply, it was his own _son_ that was being accused—how could anyone accept their own child as a psychopathic, murderous megalomaniac without solid evidence to prove it?

Now, if they could only manage to prove what Light and Misa were before they were let out of confinement, then nothing bad would come of this—yet, with their Shinigami gone and their death notes no longer in their possession, it seemed that would be an impossible feat. They _were_ innocent right now, and any evidence the task force could find would probably only support this. Not a trace was left on them from their time as murderers, nor would a trace be found upon them again for quite some time.

"This is frustrating." Katherine realized even as she said this that it had to be the understatement of the century, perhaps even the millennium. Once again, it was after midnight, and she was awake; she was seated in a chair she had found and dragged over next to L's, frowning over the monitors. "I mean, at least they're starting to accept that Light and Misa might be _it_, but…"

"There isn't any proof. Before your friend died, he mentioned the only physical evidence in the case wouldn't be something that any judge would accept. I suppose he was talking about the death notes."

Katherine nodded. "I didn't even know Al knew about them until maybe a few days before…" She sighed—she _still_ couldn't say that damned word. "I didn't pick up _my_ stubbornness from anywhere strange, anyway. We're going to have trouble with the death notes, that's a given, but as long as Aizawa and Matsuda are warming up to the idea of temporary memory loss, they'll be a little more prepared for the death notes as reasoning. They may not be _quite_ as prepared for you chaining yourself to Light once he's out of confinement. That could raise some questions."

L sighed, but didn't respond. Response only seemed to fuel her.

"What? I just think that if you go chaining yourself to the supposed God of the New World, _some_ people might wonder if you're not supposed to be the God_dess_ of the New World. Then Misa might start looking at you as competition, and believe me, you _don't_ want to get on Misa's bad side. See, I'm just looking out for you."

"I was under the impression you were attempting to irritate me."

"Is it _working_?" He glanced in her direction. The change in expression from his regular deadpan was very slight, almost unnoticeable, but it _was_ there—he was getting annoyed, and it was almost, though perhaps not quite, as endearing as his confusion. "It is, isn't it?" She laughed, and tilted her head over onto his shoulder. "Well I'm _sorry_." He glanced at her again, and this time it was with a _stop-invading-my-bubble_ sort of glare. She picked her head back up, offering him a glare in return. "Oh, _fine_…"

Once again, L looked over at her, this time slightly thrown off—was she giving up that easily? It didn't seem possible, yet somehow it seemed she _had_. Now glaring off in the other direction, her arms were crossed, and she showed no signs of returning to her previous means of strange torment. What exactly had he done differently this time to stop her? It was all the same exasperation as any previous time, but she had never given up so easily before. She seemed… almost _angry_. It was a little befuddling, a little worrying.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine." And back to her regular disposition—she was smirking already. Of course, it had just been an act to throw him off. What else should he have expected? "I was only testing you."

"Testing."

"Yes. You act like I'm annoying you, I leave you be, and rather than leave well-enough alone you have to see if something's wrong."

"And this proves?"

"Not important." L sighed, and she laughed again.

"Is there any reason behind all of this?"

"Well," Katherine said slowly, "if you weren't so adorable when you're irritated, you wouldn't have to worry about it."

This was getting out of hand much too quickly. For two days, only _two_ days she had been back, and this had been at a near constant. She had, at least, admitted her intent—she was testing him. But, again, to what end? It seemed she was making such wild claims just for the sake of taking mental notes of all of his reactions, compiling them into some bizarre case study on him, but _why_? What interest did she have in his social ineptitude, what strange satisfaction did this analysis provide her with? It made positively no _sense_, but there had to be _some_ way to stop it.

The only idea L could think of that might potentially work was to beat her at her own game—but how to play this game when the rules weren't even clear? Perhaps it would be worth trying anyway; there was always the option of learning along the way. It seemed childish, foolish, but what other choice was there at this point? The only way to counter her would be to meet somewhere in the middle.

"Really?"

Instant results—she cocked an eyebrow at him. "Yes…" she said slowly.

"Oh. Well thank you."

For a moment, she was utterly taken aback by what had just happened—indeed, what _had_ just happened? _Thank you_? That hardly sounded like a reaction the L she was familiar with would have. The tone had been the same as usual—bland, fairly void of emotion, bordering on disinterested—and yet, she had certainly heard it. What was this sudden new development? Her eyes narrowed slightly as she surveyed him; there was something else there, behind the stoic expression, something very subtle—utter panic, and perhaps a bit of arrogance. Even _he_ couldn't believe he'd just done that, but he was obviously quite proud over it. Then all he was doing was trying to win, to conquer this battle, because L simply didn't _lose_. Not to Kira, and most certainly not to petty compliments.

_Not this time_. She smiled cheerfully, both at the thought and to push him just a bit further off of his high horse. "You're welcome," she gleefully informed him.

That arrogant glint faded from his eye, to be replaced entirely with the underlying panic, and not ungrounded—though he truly hadn't expected to fend her off that easily, he hadn't thought ahead, hadn't thought of what her potential reactions might be or how to counter them. It was like some strange game of chess, where the pieces on either side were infinite and could move in any way imaginable. Two squares up, three diagonally, two down, one left; or perhaps simply two forward, maybe diagonally three squares. There was no possible way for either of them to predict the other's next move, as the next move spanned as wide as the human vocabulary, into a virtual infinity. While this meant she would be rather unpredictable… it also meant he could be as well. Inwardly, he flinched at the thought—just _how_ far was he going to have to go to catch _her_ off guard?

Katherine watched him deliberate, not bothering to glance out of the corner of her eye, just looking on curiously, smugly—this was _something_ she was better at than the genius sitting next to her… granted it definitely seemed he had the capacity to learn practically anything in a matter of seconds, as he was proving now. After a moment, without so much as looking over, in his regular toneless tones, he offered, "And you are rather cute when you're confused."

For a moment, Katherine looked on in shock, before she realized she was blushing. The shock turned to momentary panic, and she looked down at her knees. Yes, he was learning quickly, perhaps too quickly. Maybe she could use her own panic to throw him off? Indeed, when he glanced over after her momentary silence, his triumph seemed to turn sour at the sight of _just_ how successful he had been, to further anxious confusion. Undoubtedly, he was wondering, what if this _wasn't_ just a game? She _could_ use this, and fully intended to.

Avoiding looking directly at him, she replied, feigning nervousness herself, "Er… thanks."

"You're welcome."

That was it. The taunt wasn't evident in his tone, which was as detached as usual, but it was there, and he hadn't missed a single beat in throwing it at her. That was it for her, she was done, and perhaps he _had_ won this battle, but there would be plenty more to come—she would ensure that. This game was _not_ over. It was a simple K.O. right now, not a complete fatality, and she had every intention of bouncing back. But, for now, it was finished.

"I'm getting tired," she lied, "and I'm distracting you from your voyeurism again. I'll see you in the morning."

She stood and, with one last burst of inspiration, ruffled his hair affectionately before dragging her chair back to its previous location and falling onto the sofa. She kept her eyes on L for a moment before turning them to the ceiling, vaguely wondering if there had been any kind of truth in his statements. There were in hers—he was cute when he was annoyed, or confused, or half-asleep, or—well, overall, he was rather adorable. She closed her eyes tightly and rolled over to face the back of the sofa, slightly annoyed with herself for blushing yet again. All in all, he reminded her strangely of a puppy, perhaps some wide-eyed breed of terrier, maybe a baggy-eyed basset hound. Either way, quite endearing.

L didn't glance back from the monitors, but rather sat with his chin on his knees, not sure whether to feel sulky or triumphant—he wasn't _entirely_ sure he had won. Still, before leaving, she had managed to add a comment about voyeurism into the mix and ruffle his hair before he could throw in another word, and now was much too late to have the last word—yet, for his first attempt at whatever this was she was playing at, he had done exceptionally well. There had been a moment of utter panic when she had blushed—he had gone a bit too far that time, thrown her off enough to throw himself off, and it had backfired—but it had played out well. _Had_ he won? Had _she_ won? He deliberated over this for a brief moment before deciding, _this_ time, to leave well enough alone. There would only be more frustration for him if he kept wondering. Truly, there was no way of knowing who had won, with the utter lack of rules to go by, without the knowledge of what odd sort of game this _was_.

And still, what if it _wasn't_ a game at all? What if there was some truth in her off the wall statements… or in _his_? L blinked at the monitors before him at this thought, though he truly didn't see anything on the laptop screen. If he had misjudged this as a simple game, as a battle of wits, and it was something else entirely, then there could be serious consequences to face.

Shaking himself mentally, L picked up his coffee cup—the coffee within was lukewarm now, but to waste coffee was not something he could bring himself to do. As he took a sip, he decided that whether this was a game or not, he was going to win. There was no question in it—she had challenged him, and he did not turn down a challenge. This challenge was a bit on the ludicrous side, but even so, it was more entertaining than he had suspected—it was hardly a wonder she had been so bent on bothering him. Losing wasn't going to be an option; he would persevere, and he would win.

* * *

_Because L looks at everything as a game that __**must**__ be won, including but not limited to the Kira case and compliments.  
_

_The word of the day is wolof! Don't ask me what it means, just thank the random word generator for helping a lazy comma supply you with it._

_And on that bombshell, I'm off to catch a little sleep before I go out later._


	23. Research

_First and foremost, I'd like to apologize for the lateness of this chapter. I just wasn't feeling it last night. RL just slugged me in the face and I ended up rather blarghish for most of the night—if I'd written like that, the quality would have been far below normal for me, and it would have been a waste of time anyway since I wouldn't have published it and would have rewritten tonight Dx But I'm doing a bit better tonight, and reading over all the wonderful reviews definitely added to the cheer and motivation, so I'm back!_

_Stormygio__: I can see the panda side as well, around the eyes, but he's still very curious-puppy-like to me. Whereas Matsu is sort of hyper-puppy x3 Thanks, and sorry for the lateness of this chapter! _

_Shadow-Chan 4__: I really see him as both puppy-ish and panda-ish xD Puppy-ish in behavior and mannerism, but kinda panda-ish in appearance. I just like comparing characters to random animals, I guess xD_

_austiles__: I'm glad you do find it realistic! Realism is way too ridiculously important to me in my writing when it comes to character interaction…_

_xxyangxx2006__: Well, I figure L had considered something at least similar before Katherine mentioned the handcuffs—since, really, there's absolutely no other way to keep a watch on Light at all times. And the connotation surrounding it is absolutely __only__ Katherine's point-of-view. Honestly, she might not even think Light does swing that way—she's just mentioning it to get on L's nerves, and will likely throw something of the same nature at Light at some point just in lieu of her intense dislike for him. I __don't__ write yaoi—I poke fun at it._

_Signora Ted__: LOL, I won't smack you, since I didn't write yesterday either xD I think we're even. And indeed, he will. L learns much too quickly for his own good._

_Shadowess 88__: Yeah, he really doesn't—his interactions with Misa and her crowd of admirers at To-Oh made that evident enough. He did well for someone who never goes out in public… but it was still positively awkward for all parties involved. And L trying to Jedi mindtrick anyone would be deathly amusing. GAH. Must make more Star Wars references. I seriously giggled when I wrote Light saying "it's a trap!" in this chapter, even though that bit __was__ in the manga xD_

_fezzesandbowtiesarecool__: T'was quite a pleasant surprise to see your new review right after I finished up this chapter :) And I've noticed the paragraph issues in fics myself! Published authors don't do that, and neither should self-published. It's part of what's contributing to what I sort of view as a fall of literacy. The same amount of people __want __to write, but with keyboard shortcuts and easier English courses, hardly anyone really seems to know how. A perfect example would be comparing a letter between two friends in, say, the eighteen hundreds; to a facebook message between two friends nowadays. It seemed there was actually a need for grammar and vocabulary back then D'x Sorry for the rant; I just get kinda irked out about how fall the standards of writing have fallen over the years… But anyway, back on track. I'm glad you're all right with their chemistry—that's something I worry about pretty much constantly, given you don't ever see how L would actually act around a friend in the series (Ohba stated in interviews that L didn't __really__ view Light as a friend), sooo I sort of had to fabricate. If L isn't L-like, I feel like I've failed xD And dun stop reviewing D8 Reviews to me are what sweets and sitting strangely are to L—if I don't get reviews, my writing ability decreases by forty percent! But seriously, it's up to you xD I do really appreciate your reviews, though._

_**Disclaimer**__: I have NOT almost written the word "summary" instead of "disclaimer" for the past two author notes. Also, I do not own Death Note, just some Death Note merchandise… and not nearly enough of it in my opinion._

_**Warnings**__: Not many. Read at your own risk anyway, though. Y'know, just in case._

_**Quoteyquoteyquoootey!**_

"_Even the bathroom…?" L looked over at Katherine questioningly. "Are there going to be cameras and bugs in the __bathroom__?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Oh god…" she groaned, laying her head on the table in front of the laptop now. "I changed my mind. You can handcuff me to her. I'd rather have Misa with me at every waking moment than be watched by the task force when I actually require a little __privacy__."_

"_That won't be possible. Misa will be leaving on a regular basis for her work and could not be going out handcuffed to another person. And even if she weren't, it would make little sense to the task force for a suspect to be handcuffed to another suspect. There were cameras and bugs in every room of the Yagami and Kitamura families' homes when they were under surveillance, and both families had daughters and wives. It would be suspicious if there was any sort of double standard in the surveillance of your and Misa's floor of the investigation complex."_

"_In the freaking __bathroom__…" she half grumbled, half moaned. "I'm beginning to wonder if Misa wasn't right about you being a pervert."_

* * *

The days leading up to the fifteenth day of Light and his father's confinement had passed with little event. They had switched hotel rooms again a few days ago, and the monitors had been wired to a larger television screen to leave the laptop open for regular use. This room was a little larger than the last and even a great deal more comfortable, but still lacked the charm of _home_—for the past few days, Katherine had been getting a bit homesick, and had contemplated using the next trip to stock up on supplies (coffee, various food items, assortments of sweets and cakes, et cetera) to stop by and visit Pat and Don. Her enthusiastic offer to go out and pick these things up had left the other suspicious, and Matsuda was sent along to make sure she didn't do anything or go anywhere she wasn't supposed to.

The two arrived back in good time, and Katherine dropped a couple bags next to L before walking over to the sofa. Matsuda followed suit, looking mildly confused about something as he took his seat on the sofa. "So… Fender…"

"No, no, _no_, Fender isn't even a part of the equation," Katherine replied, shaking her head. "Gibson bought out _Epiphone_. You're going to have to know these things if you're going to be the guitarist, you know."

"But you don't know anything about drums!"

"Yeah, but the guitarist _has_ to know about guitars."

"Why?"

"B…because. It's just required."

"Then you can be the guitarist."

"But I prefer drums…. I don't know jack about them, but they're just so much fun."

"Then why'd you bother learning about another instrument?"

She shook her head. "Pat goes through hobbies ridiculously fast. Decided he was going to learn guitar, then decided after a couple weeks that banjo seemed like more fun, then realized he didn't actually like any music that involved banjo and moved on to juggling." She shrugged. "And everyone around him gets to hear all about these random escapades before he gets distracted by something else."

"Are you two _still_ on about that weird band thing?" Aizawa asked the two of them incredulously, glancing at them from his chair.

"It's not _weird_," Katherine replied, crossing her arms. "Feel lucky, you're the bass guitarist. From everything I've heard that's a bit easier than lead guitar."

"I'm not in any _band_."

"Yet. Oh, nearly forgot—where'd you put that newspaper?"

"Oh!" Matsuda stood and hurried over to the bags he had deposited near L's monitoring station, fished through them for a moment, and pulled out a newspaper. "Apparently two weeks worth of criminals were killed yesterday."

"Yes, I was aware," L said.

"So does chief know yet?"

"Not yet—" Before L could react, Matsuda had snagged up the microphone connected to Yagami's room.

"Chief, Kira's murders have started again despite the fact that Light-kun is still in confinement!"

"R… really, Matsuda?" Yagami said, standing from his chair. "Then that means suspicion of my son is… no, this is Ryuzaki we're talking about, he won't clear Light…."

L frowned for a brief moment, before informing Matsuda, "He's in the gray."

"Did you hear that, Chief? He's in the gray, he's probably only one shade from being cleared!"

"Yes, he was 'definitely guilty' just a few days ago…"

"Now for Light-kun, too—"

L put his hand over the button on the microphone that led to Light's room. "Don't let Light-kun know yet," he said.

"Wh… what…?"

L spoke into the microphone. "Light-kun."

Even upon being addressed directly, Light didn't look up. He sat before his bed on the floor of his cell, head bent over his knees, and replied quite dejectedly, "What is it, Ryuzaki?"

"It's been two weeks since Kira last killed a criminal. Why don't you confess?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Ryuzaki." Light did look up at this, his eyes wide and livid. "You're wrong—I can understand how you came to this conclusion, but _I'm not Kira_! This—it's a trap! Look into my eyes—does it _look_ like I'm lying? Just let me out already so I can actually help find Kira!"

Misa's microphone next—Aizawa and Matsuda looked on speechlessly. "Amane, you really don't know who Kira is?"

The girl on the monitors responded with a heavy sigh. "That again? I wish I did know… Kira's a hero. He punished the man who killed my family."

The room remained utterly silent for quite some time after this. The charades were getting old quickly, especially now that Kira was punishing again—the conversation only a week ago, in which they had all accepted that a third Kira very well could enter the equation during the confinement, seemed long forgotten by Matsuda and Aizawa, who wanted as much as Yagami did to believe that the two were innocent—these new killings only gave them further reason to believe this.

* * *

"That was a brilliant show you put on earlier. I think Aizawa and Matsuda like you even less now."

With a glance at the time on the screen of his laptop, placed at the corner of the table the television now hosting the video feed of Light, Misa, and Yagami sat upon, L almost sighed. Midnight. There was little doubt there would be much serious conversation, but he would be perfectly willing to put up with that tonight—for once, the screen of the laptop was blank, a single file open and minimized to the taskbar, a file that L very much hoped his addresser wouldn't notice.

He smelled a strong scent of coffee before he glanced down and realized a cup was being held nearly under his nose—he took it after a moment and kept his eye on the television screen. He had expected Aizawa and Matsuda to hold some skepticism over his actions, but to do things any differently would have been at the risk of their suspicion; he had acted only as he would have had he been just as in the dark as the two of them.

"The next step of his plan has begun," Katherine continued. "Rem found someone to drop the death note on."

"It's almost a definite at this point that Light will be on the task force immediately after he is released. My suspicion of him can't just disappear, however. If I didn't know right now that he wasn't Kira, I would want to find a way to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wasn't before allowing him on the investigation team, such as a kill-or-be-killed situation."

"Without it ultimately resulting in his death?" L nodded, and Katherine scoffed. "Figures…"

"He—"

"I know, he _isn't_ guilty right now, and even if he was we'd have to prove it before we could give him the death sentence. Doesn't mean I have to like it. This is why you have my death note, if you care to remember." With a sigh, she leaned back in her chair, a very plain, black chair that had been dragged over from a vacant desk in the corner of the room. "So how're you going to go about setting this up? I'd volunteer for the part of the 'killer,' but they know I _can't_ be killed by Kira, so that leaves me out."

"I intend to propose the idea to Yagami-san once it is fully developed," L said, and took a sip of his coffee. He frowned at it for a moment before setting it down and adding a few more cubes of sugar to it from the bowl at the corner of the table. "As believing as he is of his son's innocence, there is an eighty-nine percent chance he'll volunteer for the role without even being asked. He wishes more than anyone else to prove Light's innocence and will undoubtedly take any chance he can to do so, even at the apparent risk of his own life."

"There's still a chance he might not volunteer. What then? I sort of doubt Matsuda or Aizawa will."

"I will state my suspicions to Watari—that it is highly unlikely that either Light or Misa are guilty at the current time—and ask that he play the role of the 'killer.' I'm certain Watari would agree. Regardless of who enacts this side of the plan, however, it will prove Light and Misa both are innocent, and will put Light on the task force."

"And this leaves Misa where, exactly…?"

L frowned. "If Light will still be under suspicion—which he will—then Misa will remain under suspicion as well, and will have to remain under the surveillance of the task force."

"I'm not handcuffing myself to her. You can't make me. I'll sue."

"She will continue her career as an idol," L continued, ignoring Katherine's interjection entirely, "and will have a new manager. I intend to assign Matsuda to this position, under the alias he was near the beginning of the Kira case. Currently under construction is a new headquarters for the Kira investigation—an apartment complex from the fifth to twentieth floor with four rooms per floor from the fifth to twentieth floor. I would like to keep Light and Misa in confinement until around the time it is finished, if possible. Misa will stay near the top floor, which will be under full surveillance at all times."

"Uh-_huh_… and she'll be staying by herself?"

"You will be staying with her." Katherine hung her head. "This way you will also be able to keep an eye on her, not to mention the clearance of Misa and Light's guilt may lead some members of the task force to further suspect you."

"Even the bathroom…?" L looked over at Katherine questioningly. "Are there going to be cameras and bugs in the _bathroom_?"

"Yes."

"Oh _god_…" she groaned, laying her head on the table in front of the laptop now. "I changed my mind. You can handcuff me to her. I'd rather have Misa with me at every waking moment than be watched by the entire task force when I actually require a little privacy."

"That won't be possible. Misa will be leaving on a regular basis for her work and could not be going out handcuffed to another person. And even if she weren't, it would make little sense to the task force for a suspect to be handcuffed to another suspect." Katherine sighed forlornly. "There were cameras and bugs in every room of the Yagami and Kitamura families' homes when they were under surveillance, and both families had daughters and wives. It would be suspicious if there was any sort of double standard in the surveillance of your and Misa's floor of the investigation complex."

"In the freaking _bathroom_…" she half grumbled, half moaned. "I'm beginning to wonder if Misa wasn't right about you being a pervert."

With the mood this sour news had put Katherine into, every _Kira's-queer_ joke she had scrounged up throughout the day had managed to slip her mind—and regardless, L didn't seem in much of a mood for it himself. He was more contemplative than ever with the development of this new plan to prove without a doubt that Light wasn't Kira, and something else floated through the atmosphere as well, something rather apprehensive. The apprehension couldn't have been in light of the news he had just conveyed to Katherine, or it would have been gone already. Yet it was still there, hanging over them and making L quite silent as he sipped his coffee.

Still a bit miserable about the news, Katherine picked her head back up. There would be no talking herself out of this situation, of course. L's mind was made up on it, and all of his logic was perfectly justified. She sighed. "I was only joking. I get your reasoning, I really do, but I still don't like the results."

"I didn't expect you would," L admitted, "though I assumed you would have more complaints about Misa than the cameras."

"What can I say? I'm a girl, and girls like their privacy. That's why _our_ public restrooms are separated into proper stalls. I may just have to change clothes in my closet… unless they're going to have cameras, too." L was silent at this, which was more than enough of an answer for Katherine. She sighed exasperatedly. "That's just a bit _too_ thorough, if you ask me."

She crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair, and her eyes landed on the laptop. The device remained on its desktop screen for the first time in perhaps months—she had never seen its desktop, at least, but it was as plain and white as she had expected. White background, pale silver taskbar with only a single program open at the moment—a document marked "Research." Her brow furrowed as her eyes landed upon this.

"I thought you didn't like keeping notes on your investigations?" L looked over, saw her eyes were on the laptop, and his darted back to the television screen. "We only got the bare minimum when Pat hacked your computer back in January."

"That's research for something else."

"Something unrelated to the Kira case?"

"Yes."

"What might that be?"

"It's… classified."

Katherine smirked a little. So _this_ was where the apprehension in the atmosphere was coming from—he hadn't had time to close that file, or hadn't thought to, before she had joined him at his makeshift monitoring station. Nevertheless, he obviously wasn't in any sort of mood to be interrogated now, and she wasn't going to bother him over it. It could have been something arbitrary that he simply didn't want her knowing about, or it could have been as important as the information he had accidentally given away to her that had gotten her kicked off of the investigation team a few weeks ago. She wasn't willing to risk it if it was the latter, especially not for simple entertainment purposes.

"If you say so," she said finally in reply. "I'm not going to ask anything else about it. Anyway… I've been up nearly five straight days and I don't have quite the capacity for it you seem to. I need to get to sleep. You could probably do with some too, but given you're going to be busy watching television all night…" This actually received a slight eye roll. Katherine smiled. "Good night."

Standing, she pushed her own chair back a bit and turned to give L the same hug that she normally did before going to find a chair or a couch to rest on. He had been gradually growing more used to this, hadn't jumped in surprise or as result of his unending nervousness the past few nights—tonight he even said _good night_ back, and—no. _No_. Was it even _possible_ it was a delusion, some strange hallucination, or was she actually being hugged back? This froze her thoughts for a moment—it was much too strange. Perhaps not strange in too terribly bad a way, but it _was_ odd for him. Her stomach seemed to drift off from its normal position in her abdominal cavity and all but disappear.

She let go quickly and straightened out, repeating her previous _good night_ quickly before dragging her chair back to its desk across the room and taking claim to one of the unoccupied armchairs. Lying sideways, legs hanging over one of the chair's arms, she stared at the large window facing her, just to keep her eyes off of the back of the chair across the room from her, where that insomniac sat deliberating over the Kira case and working on some _classified_ research document. She was in need of some nicotine and good old tobacco to think this over with, wished she hadn't decided against picking up a couple packs of the cancer sticks when she had been out hours earlier. Instead, she bit at her fingernail, bit at her fingernail like he had a habit of biting at his—she stopped, folding her hands over her middle and closing her eyes.

For the past week, Katherine had been ignoring these thoughts, assuring herself that she most certainly did _not_ think of him that way, _could_ not think of him that way. They were just friends, just as she was friends with Pat, just as she was friends with—Don might not have been the best example, especially not in this situation, and she ended that idea before her train of thought could make a stop there. They were _only_ friends, nothing else. Perhaps she did think him sort of cute, but that was nothing. _Nothing_. Agitated, she opened her eyes and glared up at the ceiling. Sleep was overrated—tonight was going to have to be spent pounding a few ideas into her brain until her subconscious surrendered and promised to never, _ever_ suggest such ridiculous things to her again for as long as it existed within her own skull.

L took a mental note of her hurried, confused retreat, chalking it up as another victory in their game as he saved and closed the document he had mistakenly left open on his laptop. With the many web pages and research studies he had found himself stumbling over and sifting through on this strange subject of _friends_, from which he had taken various notes and frowned over during many instances in which he had been left alone, there were some rather irritating, almost disturbing conclusions to be made.

For one, it seemed that the average psychologist knew little more on the subject than the average teenager, if not even less than the average _child_. Certainly, psychologists had a better vocabulary, could phrase everything more eloquently, attribute this trait or that to this part of the brain or the other, but the traits themselves of the average friendship were so expansive that it was hard to make any real conclusion—how teenagers had such large, intricate circles of friends and enemies, with the little bit of honest knowledge they had on the subject, was completely beyond his understanding; he was having trouble managing even one.

Thinking back upon his final conclusions, he wondered if perhaps there wasn't some mistake in his calculations, in the percentages—though percentages had never failed him in the past, L felt it necessary to cast some doubt on them this time. Yet it seemed that regardless of what they consciously thought, there was a chance that these games were grounded in at least _some_ reality. There was also a chance—less than fifty percent, though probably greater than twenty—that there might have been some sort of a crush here; perhaps on her side, perhaps on his own side, perhaps on both sides. Given the chain reaction surrounding that hug earlier, the chances were slightly increased on her side; and as much nail biting as _he_ was doing over it now, maybe the chances were a bit higher on his side as well.

From all of this, the probability that friends were the most befuddling case he had ever worked on had risen to nearly eighty percent.

* * *

_And I suppose some might call that "a wrap."_

_Hmm… wrap…_

_The word of the day is cellophane! :D_

_On that bombshell, I think I'm off to go poke and prod at the original TKN and decide just where to start the next chapter._


	24. Glance

_I so ridiculously sleepy )': I think I'm gonna actually go lay down once I'm done uploading this._

_Stormygio__: xD Well, the only person he'd really have to ask about it would be Watari, but I figured L would be more apt to go about his normal methods and thoroughly research the topic xD_

_xxyangxx2006__: Thanks xD The band will probably be mentioned periodically throughout the story at random filler moments. And yes, I do believe L would xP_

_Signora Ted__: Human interaction on the whole is a giant enigma. Nineteen years experience with it and I still don't have any idea what's going on Dx Pretty bad since I'm planning on going into psychology…_

_Shadowess 88__: I've actually noticed that before myself, though Sheldon is a greeeaaaat deal more pompous about his intelligence than L generally is. And I bet L's smarter anyway…. Aaaaah crackfic crossover in which the casts of the two shows meet. That would be ridiculously entertaining. And yeah, possible to change in private, but showering wouldn't exactly be as easy. I remember first reading through the manga, at the point where L decides to wire the Kitamura and Yagami households with cameras and bugs, and my __first__ thought was "In the bathroom too?" I don't think I could bear living in any place where there were cameras on me in every single room at all times. I value my privacy too much. As far as tattoos, I don't believe Katherine has any, unless she got them in secret. Al never would have actually let her._

_**Disclaimer**__: No owns nothing._

_**Warnings**__: Blaaaaargh too tired for this…_

_**Quoteyquote**__:_

"_No," she said, shaking her head, "more like a cross between a puppy and a panda cub. Yeah." She nodded with a certain finality. "You're a panda puppy."_

"_I'm…"_

"_You heard me. You're a panda puppy."_

* * *

There wasn't a shadow of a doubt in L's mind that Katherine was purposely avoiding him.

Their communication over the past few days had been limited to necessary interactions regarding the Kira case, and she would lie down at night at around eleven and stare either at the ceiling or out the window without sleeping much. She hadn't spoken to him if Matsuda and Aizawa weren't awake. It didn't seem to be in any sort of anger—at least for the moment it didn't—but rather out of nervousness. Her eyes were once again glued to the ceiling as L passed to refill his empty coffee cup at one in the morning on the eighteenth of June; open, contemplative, but she didn't say a word.

Strange.

Her eyes were closed when he turned to walk back to his chair; she didn't appear to have fallen asleep, and it would have been doubtful in that short amount of time that she had anyway, but he could at least confirm that she also didn't seem particularly mad over anything; only thoughtful. L reclaimed his chair a moment later and pulled his laptop in front of television screen, fishing through a few folders and stopping at a document marked _Research_. After a few seconds of consideration, he deleted the file from the hard drive, and from the recycle bin—better to leave behind no traces. He had memorized most of the useful information already, anyway.

He glanced back over his shoulder and saw she had shifted to lie in the opposite direction across the sofa, now facing the door, and turned back to the laptop to close it, sighing inwardly. The chances were probably right around fifty percent now, maybe a bit higher. A few days without her strange, friendly variety of torment and already, despite her being in the same room, he inexplicably missed her.

It had already been quite a long night, and it wasn't showing any signs of letting up.

It was nearly five hours later that Katherine awoke from a somewhat uneasy sleep, spent a moment debating as she fully awoke, and hurried over to the coffee maker within a few minutes, before she could change her mind. Unlike the past few mornings, she didn't go back to her chair-or-sofa of choice with the cup of coffee, but instead across the room, to the detective silently monitoring the Kira suspects.

Katherine was, within her rights, surprised to find L fast asleep in his regular chair when she walked over to it with a cup of coffee much to sweet for her own taste—she wasn't much in the mood for coffee herself, but she had spent the past couple days caught in a battle between her conscious and subconscious mind and had avoided L for the majority of it, and didn't want him thinking she had any issue with him. He was at the root of the problem that had kept her away, sure, but not the majority of it. The coffee was something of a peace offering, an offer to actually start communicating in a friendly manner again.

He wasn't simply dozing this time—he was dead to the world, completely out, had fallen over slightly and was half sitting, half lying in the chair, arms wrapped around his legs in a fetal position, breathing slowly and heavily. With his eyes closed, the bags beneath them weren't quite so visible, and he looked even younger than his wild, child-like eyes made him appear; perhaps even attractive, beyond that puppyesque cuteness he possessed when awake. Her eyes landed for a moment on the slightly parted lips and darted away from them almost instantly, warmth creeping up to her cheeks.

It was impossible to deny to herself that she was beginning to think of the defective detective as maybe a bit more than a mere friend—were he just a friend and nothing more, she would have had little issue with finding him attractive; but thinking about it even a little made her face grow warm, oxygen a little harder to separate from the air around her and take into her lungs. It wasn't quite as extreme as her first crush, at least, but that had piled up for _years_—it got to the point for a while that she would nearly suffocate on air if left alone in a room with Don. Their year-long rendezvous had cured her of her weakness, but at a steep price—he still loved her, as she did him, but she couldn't start anything again for the guilt that Al positively would _not_ have approved.

_Would_ he have approved of L…? Probably more than Don; he probably would have approved of _anyone_ more than Don, in fact. Don and he had been like brothers, so Al knew precisely what Don had been like with most women—use them and lose them. Katherine had joked that they had worked so well only because they had already been living in the same house and he _couldn't_ just make up an excuse and send her home the next morning, though there had been more to it. Al, however, would have jumped to conclusion and likely disemboweled Don before he ever got the chance to hurt her, had he ever found out about them.

It was much different with L. L was a social recluse. L knew not thing one about women, much less how to trick them—convincing Misa he was a fan of hers hardly counted; he had been awkward at best, and she was happy to have any fans no matter how unbelievable. L was, in most respects, completely ignorant on the subject of dating, not a heartbreaker by any means (though his utter cuteness at the moment was enough to break her heart), innocent as a child. Perhaps it was this last thought that made her smile and put a hand to his cheek, stroke it back through his hair, almost completely unconsciously. Hand still in the soft, albeit tangled tresses, she bent over him and pressed her lips to his cheek for a few long seconds. That close to him, she heard clearly the mumble that escaped his lips, mostly toneless— "…rine-san…"

Her name…? Straightening out, she observed with quite a bit of surprise that his lips had curved at their corners slightly, nigh unnoticeably, into a ghost of a smile. Katherine managed to coerce her hand to leave his hair, smiling a little herself. Maybe their subconscious minds were on similar wavelengths. It seemed likely he would awaken soon—he seemed to never sleep for much longer than an hour, after all—so she left the coffee on the table in front of him. A moment later, she dragged a chair across the room over next to L's, propped up her feet on the table by the closed laptop at the corner, and kept a watch on the monitors; someone had to watch them, and she was the only person awake, so she may as well make herself useful.

* * *

"But… I still don't understand how you managed to break a windshield with a _burger_."

She had gotten the gist of the story mere days ago, as a warning from Aizawa about letting Matsuda near her car when the two had gone out to stock up on supplies, but still Katherine found herself at a complete loss for understanding it. The Burger Incident, however, had gained some small amount of fame back at the agency, and Matsuda was known for it by quite a few there. Matsuda seemed maybe a bit amused, but mostly embarrassed at having to recap the story.

"Well, it was the bread that did it, it was _really_ stale…"

"Okay, okay, okay," she said, shaking her head. "Let me get this straight. The _bread_ flew out of your hands, into the windshield, and somehow managed to put a crack in the windshield of the patrol car, thus turning Aizawa-san homicidal?"

"It was only a little tiny hairline crack, it wasn't even that big of a deal… and he was the one who slammed on the brakes!"

"All right, laws of inertia, I can buy that, but—it was _that_ stale? That really sounds like a health code violation. You could've put someone's _eye_ out."

"Yeah… and since I was just in training then, he had to pay for it."

"_Ouch_."

"Would have been a bigger ouch if he had found me when I hid."

Katherine shook her head. "A _cheeseburger_… _really_?"

"Would you two stop talking about fast food? We _do_ have work to do, you know."

Katherine frowned at Aizawa, but quieted down, only mumbling disbelievingly about the topic as she looked over paperwork now. Paperwork wasn't exactly her strong point, and she was already quite distracted. Having decided against a cup of coffee early that morning, she was already running a cup-worth of caffeine shorter than normal, which was no good after getting only two hours of sleep the previous night because of her stupid _feelings_. Nicotine withdrawal was setting in, and the slight irritation that was giving her was only added to by the detective that was continually glancing back at her when no one was looking—but _she_ noticed, and it wasn't helping with her steadily growing list of distractions.

It almost seemed he was doing it on purpose, to confuse her, and it just _had_ to be working. Wonderings of whether he had actually been feigning sleep early that morning had crossed her mind, and also did little for her concentration. She dearly hoped that he hadn't been—it all could have been misinterpreted… though misinterpreted perhaps wasn't the best word for it, as he likely would interpret it for exactly what it was: an admission of defeat, to herself, to him, to any possible witnesses. She was regretting it quite a bit—she even more regretted the fact that she had left with hardly a word when he had awoken, when she had been meaning to actually speak to him at some length. Now she was paying for all of it.

On the upside, she still had her death glare on her side, which she shot in his direction the next time he glanced over—it unfortunately had the double effect of utterly terrifying Matsuda. She didn't fail to notice that he moved further away from her on their currently shared sofa, forcing himself into the very corner. She didn't quite manage to stifle a quiet laugh before going back to her paperwork.

"Er…" Katherine looked over at Matsuda questioningly, who went on very quietly, "Why's Ryuzaki keep looking over here?"

She very subtly flipped a bit of hair over the side of her face to hide a slight blush, silently damning L for bringing this upon her. "Probably because I'm now the most likely Kira suspect now that Light and Misa are in the gray," she replied nonchalantly.

"The homicidal glare probably isn't helping your case much, you know."

"I'll stop glaring when he stops looking."

She shot another glare at L from behind her hair, who didn't seem quite as alarmed this time—likely because even her most murderous glare was barely even half as effective when her cheeks were even slightly pinkish.

* * *

The hours passed by slowly for much of the rest of the day, though this was little surprise to anyone with the lack of progress on the Kira case as of late. More killings had been made, of course, but this didn't particularly ruffle the investigation team at this point either. Many people seemed to assume now that Kira had merely taken a brief vacation from judging criminals, unnoticing of any real change in pattern of the killings—mostly because there _wasn't_ much of a change, it seemed. Criminals were dying. Big-time criminals, small-time felons, all over the news, news was cropping up of their mysterious deaths by heart attacks, just the same as ever. There were no real differences to speak of yet; to almost everyone, this was Kira, same as ever.

Following the events of this long day, L wasn't surprised when someone stood beside him at nearly midnight—rather than bring a chair this time, the presence simply stood, hovering over him in a fairly menacing manner. No speech, no movement, no sound whatsoever—it was unnerving enough that it made him a bit apprehensive about looking over, for fear of perhaps having his eyes forcibly removed from his skull in a gouging manner by a very irritated female. Curiosity, however, conquered fear, and he found himself looking over after only a few seconds of silent debate.

The first thing he noticed was that there was a muscle twitching above the left corner of Katherine's lip. This would have been a bad sign in and of itself, but accompanied by that same evil glare as earlier, it was made all the worse. Angry over his erratic behavior today, she was looking to intimidate him, and it might have worked had he not been expecting something of this very nature to occur.

Though she tried to keep glowering at him, tried to keep her disposition as annoyed, as frustrated with the detective as she had been for most of the day, that look she was receiving was countering her better than any fear ever could have. Eyes blinking, head tilted to the side and biting a fingernail, he was like a curious puppy that had just been introduced to a new noise. It was impossible—she finally sighed, shaking her head, and informed him quite exasperatedly, "You're a butt. You know that?"

More than confused now, he looked almost a little offended at her statement. "I wasn't fully aware."

"And you look like a freaking puppy when you're confused."

He blinked a few times. She had indeed informed him of this before, and he still wasn't exactly sure of _what_ to consider it—it certainly couldn't have been any form of compliment, in the context it was currently being used it, yet it didn't seem very insulting.

"No," she said, shaking her head, "more like a cross between a puppy and a panda cub. Yeah." She nodded with a certain finality. "You're a panda puppy."

"I'm…"

"You heard me. You're a panda puppy."

The utterly toneless quality her voice had taken on was doing very little to help him understand what she was getting at. L wasn't quite sure of whether to be offended or amused at her claim. After a moment of puzzling, he decided to settle with puzzled. She wasn't, after all, making the least bit of sense. And yet, waiting for her to speak again seemed to be doing no good—it was almost as though she was _waiting_ for him to respond to this utterly ludicrous claim.

"A 'panda puppy,'" he repeated, "would be biologically impossible. Dogs are of the canine—"

"I know. You don't need to get scientific about it. But I'm telling you, you are a panda puppy."

"How am I a crossbreed of two animals that couldn't possibly exist?"

"I dunno." She crossed her arms. "You tell me, you're the panda puppy."

This wasn't going at all how he had expected it to—this was the first time they had spoken alone in half a week, and she was certainly quite irritated, but she was making no mention of his actions at all. She seemed quite set in this _panda puppy_ nonsense, and it made less sense even than her normal ramblings with Matsuda over cheeseburgers and bands, than her calling Aizawa afro-cop on a regular basis (at least the latter was accurate). But _panda puppy_? That was crossing the line of absurdity, traipsing right over into utter madness. It was hard to imagine what such a biological crime would even _look_ like…

"You look confused," she observed.

"Really?"

"Now you sound irritated," she said, nodding. He sighed, finally looking back at the screen in front of him. "And exasperation sets in."

"Is there a reason you're narrating me, Katherine-san?"

"It's irritating you. That's enough reason for me."

That was simple enough, and two could quite easily play at _that_ game. The phrase she had mentioned a week or so ago that racked her nerves so much, what had it been? Oh, yes. "I see."

This did just a bit more than irritate her—her resolution broke and she was utterly _livid_, and it was almost entertaining. "You _son of a—_" L moved slightly away from her to the corner of his chair. Perhaps 'entertaining' was the wrong word. 'Frightening' seemed like it might be more fitting. "What right have you got to annoy _me_ when you've been bothering me for the entire _day_?" she demanded, with a somewhat painful poke to his arm at the last word—yet she had brought up the subject she had been skirting around, brought it straight into the open and couldn't simply ignore it now. "And _I_ wasn't the only person who noticed, Matsuda even pointed it out and asked me and I had to make something up so he wouldn't go _assuming_ things. _Yes_, the staring thing got on my nerves to no end, and I do hope you're happy it worked so well. I'm guessing that was your intention as some sort of revenge for my bothering you? You could have just _said_ I was bothering you, that's what _friends_ do—communicate. _Com. Mune. Eh. Cate._"

"There's no reason to pronounce your words so assertively. That wasn't my intention; you do not particularly 'bother' me, and it was not revenge for anything."

"Then _why_," she asked, eyes narrowed slightly, "did you have to go and use that phrase?"

"I do not appreciate being narrated."

"You could have said that…"

"I did."

"O… oh, you did, didn't you? Sorry—wait a second, I'm not supposed to be apologizing, you're supposed to be explaining!"

"I plan to." L glanced at her, and she was still looking peeved, though significantly calmer than a minute ago. "I'm surprised you didn't deduce anything yourself. I guessed you were eluding what was on your mind for the sake of avoiding speaking it. The document you noticed a few nights ago…"

"Is _that_ what this is about?"

"Not precisely, but it's involved. It was personal research, nothing to do with the Kira case, on an issue that I've never dealt with much in the past. On… friends."

Katherine blinked for a moment. "Friends," she repeated blankly.

"And related subjects."

In a way, she supposed she should have expected this. L wasn't one for asking for others' help flat out unless he absolutely needed it—of course he would turn to his regular methods of research to gather information on anything he was unfamiliar with, from the Kira case straight to friendship…and related subjects. With his behavior the majority of the day, this was beginning to make quite a bit more sense—would have likely made plenty of sense in the first place if not for nicotine withdrawal shortening her fuse to a mere fifteenth of its normal duration. L's actions had made him an easy target to take out a bit of stress on. She lowered her gaze from him, guilt suddenly weighing down upon her shoulders.

"I'm pretty sure I understand," she said with a sigh, "and I'm sorry to cause you any more unneeded embarrassment, but I'm going to need to hear the rest just to be sure."

After a moment of deliberating exactly how to go on, he began slowly, "I researched these things for confirmation, and I'm still not sure. I may…"

He trailed off. The words seemed to have escaped his mind entirely. Just the thought of saying it…he hadn't expected it to be this nerve-racking, just to say a few simple _words_. Yes, he may consider her as more than a friend, but what if the reason she had taken so long to catch on to what he was talking about was because she _only_ viewed him as a friend and nothing else at all? Things like this could completely _ruin_ friendships. Now, however, he had already decided he was going to discuss this with her, he had already started to tell her, and there wasn't any going back.

"You may…?" she prompted him.

"There's a… fifty-two percent chance that I may view you as more than a friend."

And with the words finally spilled out, he froze.

* * *

_Cliffhanger, anyone? -trollololol- Seriously, though, I'm sorry I'm so evil._

_Your word of the day is "crash". Which I'm about to be doing once I type this A/N and finish proofreading._

_On that bombshell, I'm… -yaaaaaawwwwnnnn-_


	25. Relax

_Chapter two days late! GAH! SOOOOOOOOOSOSO SORRRRYYYYYY! I really didn't do it just to make you wonderful wonderful readers suffer an extra bit after that cliffhanger. I just ran into a rut on this chapter that I couldn't figure out how to get myself past. Finally did, though, and it worked out rather well, in the end, I think._

_Please forgive me, O Glorious Readers. I'm but a humble writer that is slave to her own creative will, or lack thereof. I'm not worthy. -grovels-_

_fezzesandbowtiesarecool__: And now I have a huge stupid smile on my face from reading your review. I get so panicked over writing L in these situations that I'll revise every little detail and still not be positive that it's L-like enough to pass my readers' inspections, so every positive review I get makes me breathe a huge sigh of relief. And did I say forty percent? Er, I meant eighty. Yeah, eighty percent O-O _

_Signora Ted__: Patience xD Katherine didn't point out Light's surname lolness this early in the original, either; actually, it happened just after the last scene in __this__ chapter in the original. So that'll be here soon xD Then the LDC isn't until waaaaaay laters x3 Much patience is required. Aaaaand fluffiness indeed. I still worry over whether or not I can still write fluffiness, or romance of any kind. Hopefully I haven't totally forgotten how._

_Shadowess 88__: Light and L being handcuffed together is going to put quite a damper on things for a bit; though I don't think Light has quite the insomnical capacity that L does, so he's bound to pass out after a certain amount of time. The Goddess of the New World needs his beauty sleep, after all…. -cough- Katherine herself has had trouble sleeping since quite young (reasons will be explained about later, likely by her; there just hasn't been any real opportunity to yet), which is why she can manage to keep up with him fairly well on that count. Misa… she notices something pretty early on, I will say that much. Shan't say no more, however. Castiel from Supernatural? Gaaaaah I haven't gotten to keep up with that show in so long. I think I ended up ceasing watching it right around the time Castiel was introduced, and I hate that I did. My mom and I used to watch it together, and I just kinda couldn't bring myself to for a while after she passed away. I'd love to get back into it, though. -makes note to download episodes she's missed-_

_Eien-no-itami__: Are you kidding? __Everything__ about Katherine early on in the original was absolutely ridiculous. Major reason for rewriting this. And then when I started, I started getting complaints about how she wasn't __as__ smart in the rewrite… which was very important, given in the original she was way too smart, practically omniscient for the first half. -endrant- Sorry for the rant. But in short, no offense taken, given those are my opinions exactly. I was young and stupid and hope I've grown as a writer since then; I guess I have since you say you love this version. And thanks!_

_Long forgotten words__: Two weeks? Ohnoes! D8 Well, I hope that it's too your liking when you can get back to reading it again! It's tweaked here and there, but this particular bit is kept mostly the same as the original, with added and revised description._

_**Disclaimer**__: I dun own. I promise. Please don't sue me. I also don't own Urban Dictionary, which I did mention in this chapter, so I feel I should mention that as well._

_**Warnings**__: Enough fluffiness to smother a larger-than-average elephant. For serious._

_**Quote**__:_  
"_I wish we could have talked about this earlier," she said. "I feel terrible for being angry with my panda puppy all day now." She sighed. "I hate withdrawal. It really turns me into a complete monster."_

_The silence persisted, and Katherine frowned a little. He didn't seem terribly uncomfortable, not frozen as he had been earlier. As it stretched on, she opened her eyes and glanced up at him to see him looking quite pensive, almost agitated. After some time, he spoke._

"_What exactly __do__ you mean by 'panda puppy'?"_

* * *

It was quite a feat on L's part that he managed, even subconsciously, to make his eyes grow any wider than they were under normal circumstances. They remained on the video feed of the suspects in front of him on the television, unblinking. If he was breathing at all, it was very shallow and unnoticeable; it was hardly any surprise that he had frozen; many people that had experience with normal social interaction would be nervous about making such a confession. Katherine certainly was; she had hardly expected L to beat her to the punch.

She observed him, stuck in a bit of a surprised silence herself—though she had expected it from his admission of the contents of that research document from the other night, actually hearing it was another thing entirely. After a long moment of watching him bite at the nail of his index finger, she spoke up.

"How much more?" she asked carefully. He showed no immediate signs of having heard her, remaining perfectly still. Sighing quietly, she said, "Ryuzaki…" She poked his shoulder lightly, an action that made him jump—at least the shock hadn't _completely_ paralyzed him. "Don't get paranoid, it's… it's not a big deal. I'm just curious." He gulped noiselessly, but still gave no answer. She frowned. "I'm going to keep poking you until you respond." Still, no response. She poked him in the shoulder again. "Ryu—"

"With the research I did," he said suddenly, "it's likely only a fifty-two percent of a… a…" She prodded his arm. "… a small crush."

"I'm going to guess you were waiting for me to say something…" His responding nod was so short that she might have missed it had she blinked. "And you decided to bring it up since I hadn't been talking." Another very brief nod, and he gulped again. After a moment, she took a seat on one arm of the chair and placed a hand on his shoulder—L jumped once again, startled. "I'm really sorry about that. I was just… I needed some time to think about… similar things."

A silence rang between them for a moment. "Did you come to any conclusion?"

For a moment, she let her eyes swivel to the ceiling as though in consideration, in a more or less accurate imitation of the detective beside her.

"I believe," she said slowly, miming his regular calm and analytical tone, "that there is a ninety-seven percent chance that I may have a 'small' crush on you, a fifty-seven percent chance that it may be slightly larger than I'd like to think, and a one hundred percent chance that I will be imitating you quite a bit more in the future as I find it quite entertaining. And just for clarification," she added, letting her eyes fall back down on L, "there is a five-hundred and twenty-six percent chance that you are, indeed, a panda puppy."

L chose to ignore the last statement in favor of his own sanity. "You seem quite certain to have hurried off this morning."

Katherine sighed, lowering her gaze again. "I know. I'd been planning on discussing it then, but…" she shrugged, looking back up with an apologetic, half-hearted smile. "I chickened out."

"You 'chickened out?'"

Katherine rolled her eyes at his disbelief. "Even people with social experience have trouble with this sort of thing. And I can't really consider myself a socialite…. The only person I was friendly with for the first eight or nine years of my life was Al. Then Pat and Don, mostly. Don's younger brother was only around for a couple years, I was maybe eleven when he ran off, but he was quiet and I never really talked to him. I did go to school under a fake identity after I left the orphanage, but I kept away from everyone. I've really only opened up over the past few years and I'm still not particularly great at trusting people… except you, it seems. Maybe because you remind me a little of me before… well, before I got to be a bit more social." She laughed. "You know, plus around five thousand points of IQ."

She looked down at him—he was still at the other side, still flush against the left arm of the chair since she had blown up at him earlier. After a long, silent moment, she slid down from the right arm into the empty spot next to him, and she laid her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes.

"I wish we could have talked about this earlier," she said. "I feel terrible for being angry with my panda puppy all day now." She sighed. "I hate withdrawal. It really turns me into a complete monster."

The silence persisted, and Katherine frowned a little. He didn't seem terribly uncomfortable, not frozen as he had been earlier. As it stretched on, she opened her eyes and glanced up at him to see him looking quite pensive, almost agitated. After some time, he spoke.

"What exactly _do_ you mean by 'panda puppy'?"

Katherine laughed, partly in relief that this was all his contemplation had been over. "Shouldn't you know? You _are_ the only one currently in existence, after all." She grinned. "I'm just glad I got to lay claim to the world's only panda puppy before Light can get the chance to when you go and chain yourself to him." She received a mildly annoyed sigh in response and laughed again, closing her eyes. "Why don't you research it? Who knows, maybe you'll find something."

* * *

And so he did.

It had been nearly a week since the strange term had been applied to him, and a suffocating sense of curiosity had overridden the humiliation L was sure he would feel if he did look into something so nonsensical that it couldn't possibly have any real meaning. Perhaps it wasn't rational, perhaps it wasn't sensible, perhaps not even within the boundaries of sanity to even be curious about this. The probability of the existence of a panda dog hybrid was a far cry; even with genetic engineering, the odds that an experiment of that nature would ever be considered ethical were at less than ten percent. For once, he was the one using search engines for something completely irrelevant—but this had been gnawing a gaping hole in his skull for the past week, so he had the right.

The results were absolutely astounding. "'Results one of ten of about two million six hundred seventy thousand for… panda puppy…?' This can't possibly…" Frowning to himself, he clicked on one of the first links. _Urban Dictionary_ described the phenomena as something not _quite_ as phenomenal as the madness that had been plaguing L's mind: a Taiwanese puppy dyed to look like a panda, commonly used as icons around the internet. Not quite so phenomenal, but still plaguing him was the fact that this made very little sense for the context it was being used in towards _him_.

"Whatcha doin?"

"Nothing." L minimized the screen as Katherine was taking a seat on the arm of his chair.

"_Really_. Then what's that?" she asked, amusement dancing over her tone as she pointed down at the minimized window on the task bar. "You don't strike me as the sort that frequents _Urban Dictionary_. That'd more by my sort."

"I… it was a pop-up window."

"Then why are you turning _red_?" she teased, poking one of his cheeks. "Was my panda puppy maybe trying to figure out what a panda puppy is?"

"… No."

She laughed, obviously seeing through the lie immediately. "You'll be hard-pressed to figure it out," she said. "I sort of just made it up on the spot."

"But there were over two million results in the search—"

"The search you weren't doing?"

"I _was_ searching for it, yes," he admitted. "I figured no harm would come in researching it when you had no intentions of explaining it. I still don't entirely understand, however…. Why am I a Taiwanese puppy dyed to look like a panda?"

"It's called a _metaphor_, silly." She grinned. "Shouldn't you know what those are? Or was English not a required course at detective school?"

"I'm fully aware of what metaphors are. I doubted you were implying I was literally the offspring of a panda and a dog. I just don't entirely understand the context of the metaphor itself."

She grinned. "Well, if you'd just said that in the _first_ place, we could have avoided all this trouble, couldn't we?" L sighed. "All I was saying was that you're as cute as a hybrid of a panda cub and a puppy. Especially when you're so irritated."

Whether it was a compliment or not, it had been issued in the form of a challenge—and L already had negative points to his side, from looking up that ridiculous nickname rather than getting it out of her, from out and out denying it when she asked resulting in further embarrassment on his part, and now _this_. There was still some chance at retaliation—maybe it could at least end at a draw this time.

Before any response could even be thought of, Katherine put herself yet another step ahead without speaking another word. As L hadn't been watching her, had more been staring up towards the ceiling in thought, his shock was only doubled by the sudden move. Mere seconds after her last sentence, he felt a pair of soft lips touch his cheek. The small, chaste touch quickened his pulse as blood rushed to his face yet again.

This was normally the point of no return, checkmate, the weapon that ensured her a win nearly every time because there was simply no reaction to be had… and yet there was. There was, and it was going to have to be used eventually, was it not? It was a foolproof solution, yet it was near impossible not to overanalyze it and decide against it, decide to save the trump card for later. But no—not this time. This _was_ later.

As Katherine's lips began to leave his cheek, he turned his head and captured her lips with his own. Her breath hitched in her initial shock from this sudden move, and after a moment, his action and his thoughts truly connected. He quickly pulled away, his eyes widening as he realized in an instant just how horribly his absentminded plan had backfired on him. He started to apologize for this thoughtless action, but he only managed the word "I—", stopping when he felt the fingers of one of Katherine's hands entwine themselves within his hair. He barely comprehended the fact that they were getting closer, unbearably closer, not until their lips were together again.

This time the shock was all his, but he certainly made no attempt to pull away—though this may have been because he had no time to before she was doing just that, having only brushed her lips to his for a moment, leaving their foreheads together and their lips only inches apart. The closeness was near unbearable, but a bit of normalcy returned when she opened her eyes and gave a sly smirk—somehow, despite the fact that this should have been a serious situation by every means, this actually seemed somehow appropriate.

"So what's the percentage on that 'small crush' now, _detective_?"

L blinked in response. Rhetorical question…? It seemed possible, but his mind wasn't functioning quite at full capacity. After a long moment of staring back into the blue-green eyes that hung perhaps an inch away from his own, he decided to reply anyway.

"One hundred." And with that, rather powerless to resist this new, unfamiliar temptation to which he had never before been subjected, he pressed his lips back to hers.

Once again, Katherine's breath hitched in her alarm at the sudden movement, but she managed to find it rather more quickly this time. It hardly came as any surprise to her that _he_ froze again—little contact as he had with the outside world prior to the Kira investigation, to be thrown into something like this with one of the first people he had met face to face in his time solving cases would make this at least a _bit_ awkward. It was lucky she had at least a little more experience—though she had only ever been greatly familiar with three other people through the majority of her life, she _had_ been in a romantic relationship of sorts with one of them. Inwardly, she flinched—it would probably be better _not_ to think about that now.

It thoroughly surprised her when, just as it seemed he might be relaxing a bit, L quickly moved away—she opened her eyes to find his on the screen of his laptop. "It's six fifty-eight. Matsuda-san's cell phone alarm will go off in two minutes."

"Wonderful…" she grumbled, glancing back at the sleeping members of the task force—she had practically forgotten about them. It was quite a good thing Matsuda hadn't picked this morning to wake up a few minutes before his alarm; though it was rare of him, he _had_ done so before, and it wouldn't have been particularly pleasant if this morning had been one of the few times he decided to roll off of the sofa and stumble over to the coffee maker at, say, five minutes of seven. Needless to say, he likely wouldn't have _needed_ coffee to knock away the drowsiness had he spotted them.

"Maybe," Katherine said quietly, though addressing L now, "Mattie-kun and Aizawa could use a day off. They haven't had one in quite a while, have they?"

"No…. Neither have you."

"I don't think I'd mind spending a day off right here," she said, smirking again as her hand slid out of his dark hair and down to his cheek. He blinked at her owlishly, with only the slightest change of expression—it seemed he had caught what she meant. "I pretend I'm leaving with them, but I've lost my bag and I have to find that before I can go. That should work, considering… I'm… well, I'm _not_ entirely sure what I've done with it." She frowned for a moment, before going on. "They haven't had a day off in so long that I doubt they'd question it. They'll probably just be right out the door." She pulled her hand away, glancing at the computer clock again—less than a minute. "I'm going to go grab a cup of coffee while you think it over."

Moments later, the alarm went off. It was followed by an irritated sort of grunt, and the sound of a hand flopping onto the cell phone's table to grab the device responsible for the racket and suppress it. There was a drunkenly tired shuffle to be heard after this earful, along with a yawn to match. Without looking back, L spoke up.

"Is Aizawa-san awake?"

"Eh…? Yeah, looks like it," Matsuda replied through a stifled yawn.

"Then I would like all three of you to listen," he said, in his regular stoic tones. "As there is little work to be done aside from keeping an eye on the monitors, which I can easily do myself, you may all have the day off."

There was silence for a long moment. Katherine half-wondered if Aizawa would find some reason to protest this, and went into a silent panic as she watched L from a few feet away from Matsuda. However, it wasn't Aizawa who spoke up first.

"Are you serious?" Matsuda seemed to have managed to shake off his drowsiness quite instantly. "We can actually_ leave_?"

"Yes," L replied.

"About _time_…" said Aizawa—Katherine's momentary paranoia drained away. "When?"

"As soon as you wish. Be back between ten o'clock and noon tomorrow, however."

No one had any protests to this order—Matsuda and Aizawa hurried off with rushed goodbyes, while Katherine began the façade of looking for her messenger bag. As soon as they were both out the door, Katherine headed over to it and listened at it; when their footsteps faded off in the direction of the elevator, she locked the door and walked back over to take a seat next to L again, this time squeezing into the chair next to him rather than sitting on the arm.

"That worked wonderfully," she said. "I doubt they'll even bother coming back if one of them forgot something."

"Probably not," L said, a bit absently. His eyes were swiveled towards the ceiling again, lost in thought. Katherine frowned over at him, before poking him in the shoulder.

"Something wrong?"

"I've never had a day off during a case before."

This time, Katherine blinked owlishly. "Never?" She shook her head in disbelief. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but… still seems pretty mad. You can afford to take a day off now, though, I think." She frowned when he remained silent. "Would you feel any better if we discussed the new Kira in a bit?"

After a moment's contemplation, he replied, "I don't think the day off is the issue. The problem lies in that… I'm… not entirely sure of how to spend a day off."

"Ah… well… you relax?" Katherine found herself wondering, quite abruptly, exactly what L _did_ between the ridiculously complicated murder cases he spent the majority of his time solving—he certainly didn't seem the type to have a vacation home in Cancun, after all. Frowning over this, she added, "Though I'm going to wager a guess that's something you're not sure how to do, either."

L's eyes remained on the ceiling, still quite thoughtful. "I think I might be getting better at it."

"Do you?" she asked, smirking.

Katherine was answered a moment later by a pair of hands on her shoulders, and a pair of lips on hers, surprised right out of her smugness. Though his lips did move this time, even before hers, it was a rather slow, tentative motion; and he was still terribly edgy, even jumped when she looped her arms around his neck. Though his nervousness was nothing short of adorable to her, it only seemed he was going to get less and less comfortable if she only ignored it. She drew her lips away, sighing a little as she did—there was a look of horror in his eyes at this that only reflected just how anxious he had been.

"What—" he started worriedly.

"Try," Katherine interrupted him, moving a hand into his hair again, combing her fingers through the tresses slowly, "not to be so nervous."

Eyelids falling slightly at the feeling of the hand stroking through his hair, at the sound of the soothing voice, he half-mumbled, "Sorry…"

"You don't have to apologize," she said, grinning in mild amusement now. "Just relax."

"You just seem to know what you're doing a bit better…" Still, his voice remained little more than a mumble. He seemed to be relaxing a bit more, at least—Katherine, on the other hand, averted her eyes from his at the allegation.

"I… suppose you could say that. But I've only actually been this… _close_ to one other person, so not by much. But _from_ experience," she added, "I can tell you that the sooner you learn to relax, the better it'll be. So relax. And no over-thinking or over-focusing. I know you tend to do that, and that's just going to make you more nervous."

"But I—"

"Just don't," she said quietly, letting the hand in his hair come to rest at the nape of his neck, staring into his dark eyes. "Trust me."

Whatever he mumbled this time, she didn't quite catch it; and she decided she wasn't going to bother asking when he pressed his lips back to hers again.

* * *

_The word of the day is fluff. I hope you don't have to ask why after reading this… or perhaps suffocating in it.__ I half-suffocated on teh fluffies while writing it._

_And on that bombshell, I'm off. Already about halfway done with the next chapter, so it should be along quicker than this one was._


End file.
